


Sleep of Angels

by windfallswest



Series: Woods and Waters Wild [11]
Category: Batman Beyond, Columbo, DCU, Eastern Promises (2007), Gilmore Girls, Grey's Anatomy, Highlander: The Series, Hill Street Blues, The Pretender, Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Age Difference, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Future, Bat Family, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, F/M, High School, Humor, M/M, Porn With Plot, Secret Identity, Smut, Snark, Superheroes, Teen Angst, Undercover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-24
Updated: 2012-06-24
Packaged: 2017-11-08 10:49:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 69,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/442404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windfallswest/pseuds/windfallswest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On a stakeout, Veronica Mars finds out more than she bargained for about the Russian mob and her classmate Terry McGinnis. Terry McGinnis is Batman, and also sort of secretly banging Nikolai Luzhin, a police mole running the Russian mob. Veronica wants to be more involved, and Terry wants his life to be less complicated. Bruce Wayne might want his old protégé, Dick Grayson, to stay in Blüdhaven; but Dick didn't ask him. The police definitely want to put a lid on Batman, and Nikolai probably wants for people to stop shooting at him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleep of Angels

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [crossbigbang](crossbigbang.livejournal.com). Latest in a series that starts with [We Shadows](http://archiveofourown.org/works/295732), which you don't need to read first. Sick thanks to my beta, [htebazytook](http://archiveofourown.org/users/htebazytook), who beta'd this in less time than it took me to code it. Seriously. Also to [sunryder](sunryder.livejournal.com) for making [really great art](http://sunryder.livejournal.com/15524.html) for a superconfusing crossover.
> 
> There are foreign language translations glossed in alt text. Alt text tutorial: Hover your mouse over this fake hyperlink

**Part One (Veronica)**

Welcome to Hill High, Gotham's biggest pissing contest. A hundred years ago, billionaire and philanthropist Doctor Thomas Wayne gave the poorest school in Gotham an incredible endowment. Given the state of the Hill, this was a controversial move. The only neighbourhood in Gotham with a worse rap then the Hill was the Narrows, and you couldn't really call that a community because the Narrows didn't have inhabitants so much as squatters. The Hill ran up against South Bay, known colloquially as the Aught-Nine, where the founding fathers landed in 3109 and built the first settlement. Some of Gotham's oldest, richest, and most influential families still lived there, including the Waynes. No Hill High for them: their kids used to get shipped off to private school or off-world boarding schools on Berlinetta, or have private tutors.

Doctor Wayne's endowment paid for teachers, new tech, and drastic renovations for the entire school district on one condition: that the school remain public. And to prove he was serious about it, he sent his son there. Everyone else in his social circle had no choice but to cave or be caught out as the bigoted elitists they probably were. 

This did not mean that all social barriers were levelled. Veronica Mars only wished that the wall between the classes was physical and not just metaphorical, so she'd have some warning before she ran into it.

Like now. Veronica set her jaw and keyed in the last three digits of her locker combination while Dick Casablancas hooted _got any pictures of Duncan in there?_ So much for the theory that intelligence was inherited: Dick's head was not his most valuable real estate.

"What a bunch of 渾蛋."

Veronica looked up, surprised into a smile. "Dana. Didn't think you'd want to talk to me, after..."

"After you told me my boyfriend was a two-faced jackal? It's not your fault." Dana sighed. "I really thought he'd changed. Guess my da was right, though."

"Don't you hate it when that happens?" Veronica dumped her camera, hand-held (banned during school hours), and her jacket.

"Look," Dana said seriously, "Classic Lit CATs are coming up. Why don't we get together tonight and study?"

"Uh, can we make it tomorrow night? I have...something I need to do."

"Sure." Dana looked up as the warning bell rang. "I have to get to class, but I just wanted to let you know I wasn't mad. And that I don't believe everything people say about you." 

"Really? But there's so much to choose from."

Dana levelled her a Look. "Joke all you want, Veronica Mars. 你也有朋友."

Veronica watched her go and shook her head. She remembered she had been a nice person, vaguely. Far back in the mists of time, when she'd had a boyfriend and a best friend and her parents both had jobs with salaries. 

The Hill and the Bay were the first areas settled on Gotham, the original Gotham City; and legally they were treated a little differently. One of those ways was that they had a Sheriff's Department, separate from the GCPD but still under the administrative umbrella of the commissioner. This time last year, that sheriff had been Keith Mars. That was before Lilly Kane had been attacked in her own home.

Lilly Kane, daughter of cyber-genius Jake Kane. The second most powerful man in Gotham after Derrick Powers, and people definitely liked him a lot more. He practically invented holograph technology. Jake Kane had built his company up from nothing and brought a lot of people with him on the way. When Sheriff Mars fingered Kane for his prime suspect, they voted him out of office so fast his entire family got whiplash. 

Incidentally, Lilly Kane had also been Veronica Mars' best friend. Her brother Duncan, Veronica's boyfriend. Yeah, that hadn't lasted. And that was how Veronica Mars found herself suddenly without boyfriend, friends, and social standing. Talk about your shitty karma; she must have drowned puppies in her last life.

Firmly, Veronica shut her locker like closing the door on memories she'd gone over too many times. _Пусть_. Besides, she had other things to do this afternoon than wallow. 

Most of last year, the school guidance counsellor's evaluation of her had been 'withdrawn'. This year, it had ramped up to 'anti-social'. So instead of study hall, she'd been given a choice of extra-curricular activities. 太好了. Much to Vice-Principal Clemmons' dismay, she'd chosen Office Aid. Cheerleading: never again.

Though in title extremely boring, Office Aid had the useful perk of providing her with access to all the school records, as well as an excuse to be in the vicinity of the principal and vice principal, their dedicated source-boxes, and their access codes. Well, when you were raised by a police detective and an investigative reporter, what could you expect?

Today, Veronica was on the lookout for disciplinary files, attendance records, and counselling files. She was going to nail Batman.

 

Veronica was getting way too good at sneaking into Gotham Mercy Hospital. 

Well, _sneaking_ might not be the right word. She wasn't doing anything illegal, really, or even trying to avoid being seen. But the Kanes had made it clear that they didn't want her given visiting privileges. 

Thankfully, the hospital staff liked her better than they liked Celeste Kane: go figure. Which didn't stop her insistence that Veronica be thrown out on her ear whenever she caught her there. Veronica was probably asking for it again, showing up here today of all days. But, today of all days, she had to.

Nurse Arroy smiled at her as she passed the sixth-floor nurses' station and turned left down the hall of the long-term care wing. Bake a few blini, listen to a few gripes, trail a few philandering spouses; you'd be surprised how much goodwill you could collect. One hand washed the other, after all.

Fat lot of good that did Lilly now. The external marks of the injuries that had put her here had vanished months ago, but the biggest open sore of all was that she was even lying in this bed. Lilly's skin was almost as pale as her sheets, her wicked eyes closed. Her hand, at least, was warm when Veronica gripped it.

A year ago today, Lilly Kane had been found bludgeoned in an unconscious heap out back of the Kane mansion. "Da told me to stay in the car," Veronica said softly. "But when I saw them wheeling you away on that stretcher..."

Duncan had been just shy of catatonic. She hadn't been able to get close to Lilly for all the paramedics buzzing around her. Hadn't seen anything but the splash of blood on concrete behind police tape. 

It was still weird, seeing Lilly without makeup. She was so still and quiet, like a doll in its box. Her hair and nails were neatly trimmed. The room was plastered with posters and stuffed animals, not Lilly's taste at all. 

"Господи, you'd hate this place. Good thing you're unconscious." She choked back a laugh. "I'll find out who really did this to you, Lilly. I'm gonna get them. 我 保證 給 你."

"Veronica?"

Veronica closed her eyes and counted to ten before looking up. "Logan. Just what my day was missing."

"Veronica Mars. What are you even doing here?"

That was Logan Echolls: an apathetic slouch and a complete lack of tact. Veronica stood up and shouldered her bag.

"Let me guess, you were hoping Duncan might show up. Ты подумалась то, что if you apologised for accusing his da of beating his sister into a coma, he'd take you back? When are you going to—"

"Miss Mars?" Morgan Arroy stuck her head through the door. "Is everything alright?"

Logan shot Nurse Arroy a sharp look.

"I was just leaving." Veronica brushed past them both. For once, luck was with her and no one named Kane was waiting in the hall.

 

"Oh, hey, you're finally home." Mama poked her head around the door. "Can I come in?"

"Sure." 

Rory Mars plopped down indian-style on her daughter's bed and bounced. "Grandmamma sent you another package today. I do wonder why my mother keeps sending you things."

"Because I'm her only and adored grandchild?" Veronica suggested, reaching for the box.

Mama held it up out of reach at the other end of the bed. "Uh-uh. Try again."

Veronica leaned out of her chair, fingers still falling short. " _Mama_."

"It just worries your father and me when you keep getting mail postmarked out of Police Headquarters."

And she said it with a straight face. "Mama,  Lorelai外婆 is the Police Commissioner."

"You're still not answering," Mama pointed out with a gleefully evil grin, evading a snatch.

"I just asked her to pull some old files, okay?" They were giggling and half-wrestling by this point.

"See, because I thought maybe the two of you were planning a birthday surprise for someone." Mama fended her off one-handed, with a fair amount of success until Veronica reached a ticklish spot and started fighting dirty.

"Not unless I crack this case in the next three days—aha!" Veronica grasped her prize, and they both fell back on the bed, panting. 

Mama nudged her. "Case?"

"Yeah." Veronica stared up at the ceiling, feeling the edges of a data disc case through brown paper. "Hey Mama, what do you know about Batman?"

There was a thoughtful silence. "When I was growing up, I used to hear the Midtown cops talking about him. Their opinions were still plenty divided, despite how he'd been around as long as half of them had been alive. A lot of people thought he was doing a good thing, getting at wrongs no one else could or would risk tackling. But on the legal side, some of the stuff he pulled was iffy, prosecution-wise."

Veronica frowned. "What did Grandmamma think?"

Mama snorted a dry laugh. "Your 外婆 used to say that any man who snuck up on her in a mask was gonna get maced, Batman or not. She never really got sucked into the craze, though."

"Huh."

More silence. "Veronica, are those Batman files?"

"...Maybe?" Veronica watched for a reaction out of the corner of her eye.

Mama just sighed. "媽媽, 你跟我會長談 一次." When Mama's eyes met hers, it was with a look of wry resignation. "Your da and I laid down some rules when we said you could help with the P.I. thing. I know there's a reward out there for Batman, and I know you want to go off-planet for school, like I did—"

"Ships to Antares don't grow on trees, Mama. And I can _do_ this; I know I can. I've got some leads already—"

"Of course you can. You're a Mars and a Gilmore. The only thing guaranteed to slow you down is a platypusbear tranquiliser." Mama poked her in the side, smiling, then sobered. "And I know Batman always had a reputation for not killing folk, but we still don't know about the new one. Less than a year's worth of data is not enough to make any deductions that would risk the heiress to the Mars family name. Plus, the criminal element are a bit less likely to worry about clipping innocent bystanders. So, and I think your Da will agree with me on this, cull the news and the police reports as much as you like, but I am absolutely _forbidding_ you to try and follow Batman around. If you can't do it with your butt in your computer chair, нельзя. Понятно?" 

It was Veronica's turn to sigh. "Понятно." 

Mama planted a kiss on her forehead. "Молодец."

When several minutes passed without Mama getting up and leaving, Veronica propped herself up on one elbow and squinted suspiciously down at her. Her mother's blue eyes blinked up at her brightly.

"Was there something else you wanted to talk about, or did you just come here to hold my mail hostage and steal my bed?"

"We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," Mama said, and Veronica felt her expression freeze. 

She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed, groping for a reason to excuse herself from this talk. Homework; she'd been doing her homework. Homework was always good. Parents approved of homework, she'd heard.

Mama's arm around her shoulders woke her up to the fact that she hadn't actually made it back to her desk yet. Veronica yielded very slightly and leaned into the embrace.

"It's been a pretty crap year, hasn't it, Veronica Mars?"

"Yeah."

"You've come through swinging. But if you ever get tired of hitting things and want to talk, Da and I will be here."

Veronica surprised herself with a weak sort of laugh and bumped Mama's shoulder. "You drew the short straw, huh?"

"Well, Da's out tracking down a bail-jumper."

"Like I said, short straw."

"He promised he'd cook dinner, though."

After Mama left, Veronica slid back to her desk, but she'd lost the thread of Confucius and couldn't get into it again. Moodily, she unwrapped Lorelai 外婆 的 package. There were almost thirty discs in the case, days worth of reading, at least. In four and a half decades, someone had to've caught the Bat slipping up, whether they'd realised it or not. If nothing else, every new case picked out people it couldn't be, although the search parameters on a city of thirty million plus outlying districts was going to be a bitch if it came to that. 

Veronica toyed with the thumb lock on the box, then set it down again. Who was she kidding? There was only one case she could think about tonight. She dropped her handheld in her bag and grabbed her keys.

Her Дворянин was a crappy aircar, but at least it was an aircar. No tyres to slash, but people kept sticking magnets on the AG unit. Fun, fun, fun. Veronica scratched Backup behind the ears, tossed some sort of excuse over her shoulder at Mama, and made for the office.

Mars Investigations wasn't in the best part of town, but anyone didn't realise a P.I.'s office was covered by about ninety camera angles had by now figured out that _this_ P.I. also had a serious security system. Veronica keyed her thumb and her code and went in. 

Her parents didn't think she knew where they kept the combination for the safe. Silly parents. They should've sprung for the thumbprint-gene scan lock, although Da's cut-off-your-thumb-to-pick-your-lock jokes had made their point.

Veronica had always trusted her parents. They'd always stood by each other, and she'd stood by them. A week ago, it would never have occurred to her that they might have lied to her about anything more serious than Дед Мороз or the Tooth Fairy. But two days ago Celeste Kane had hired them to tail her possibly-philandering husband; and last night, Mama had tossed the surveillance photos she'd taken of Jake Kane and the car of whomever he'd been meeting with at the Camelot Motel in the trash. Da had taken the case, and Mama had taken them off it, just like that.

_The Lilly Kane file?_ Well, she could understand how they wouldn't want to leave that lying around; but... Veronica flipped through the flimsies. _Some of these are date-stamped less than a month ago._

It was a very thick file, and that wasn't counting the no-doubt encrypted datadiscs. Records, hand-scribbled case notes and transcriptions, photos... Veronica stopped at a creased edge, the pictures she'd snapped last night. She recognised her mother's neat brush strokes on the flimsy covering them. There was a disc, too.

Veronica pulled them out and leafed through them, looking for anything she'd missed the first time around. _What the...?_

_Well, I certainly would have remembered taking_ these. Was that Doctor Heightmeyer's office? That narrowed down the time-frame from one year to six weeks, at least. Six days, actually; every Tuesday afternoon for a month and a half after the attack, Kate Heightmeyer had stared at her over a tasteful floral arrangement and Veronica had stared back, because therapy was what you did when your best friend got bludgeoned, apparently.

Of course, none of this explained what pictures of her head framed in a gun sight were doing in the Lilly Kane file. A warning, obviously; but a warning off what? Judging by the lack of large, heavily-armed bodyguards and the fact that she was allowed out at night, whatever it was wasn't threatening them anymore. These had to've been taken after the attack, yes; but after the recall election?

_No time to sit around and think about it here, Veronica._ Quickly, she scanned the photos to her hand-held. They were all flat shots, not holos; no surprise there. Holograph technology was progressing by leaps and bounds, but it still took a lot more effort to record an image in three dimensions than two. Consequently, it was near impossible to do without being seen.

Veronica checked the time. Still early enough she could pull this off. She punched a number into her hand-held, flipping through the pictures to the one she wanted. 

"Gotham City Police Department," droned a voice on the other end of the line.

"你好, Tony," Veronica said in her best Xihnon accent. "我是 英格." 

"Oh, hi Inga. What can I do for you?"

"請你幫我..."

What Veronica found out after a five-minute chat with Police HQ: her acting skills were still sharp enough to fool Tony into thinking she was the Sheriff's khaki officer; the plates she'd snapped last night were registered to a rental agency; and she was really, _really_ not okay with being in the dark on whatever investigation her parents had going on.

"謝謝," she said distantly and hung up.

Without a name or a description, the rental car was likely a dead end. Which begged the question of what Mama had recognised in those pictures, and how. Veronica unclipped the data disc at the front of the packet, wondering whether she ought risk reading it on the office DSB or taking it home to hers. A key card fell out with it. _Gotham Trust Bank, 14342; Lorelai Gilmore III._

Mama again. After a moment's hesitation, Veronica pocketed the card but replaced the disc. A safety deposit box she could probably get around, given a little time. Right now, she wanted deeply to find the sleazoid who'd taken those pictures.

Having carefully replaced the pictures and the file, Veronica headed for downtown. There was a strip of small shops, cafés, and other small businesses on Doctor Heightmeyer's street, their trade picking up with the dinner rush. Veronica drifted down the sidewalk, looking for the right angle. A man lurking about taking pictures around here would definitely stand out; enough to stick in someone's memory?

_Здесь._ Veronica stopped just shy of banging into a heat lamp. _Café._ Perfect. Veronica just hoped they kept their receipts. 

Veronica approached the hostess, letting some of her anxiety and confusion bubble to the surface. "Can you pull up your old receipts? Could you check just the ones from November and December of last year? Someone's been stalking me."

"天啊." The hostess motioned her inside to a terminal behind the counter. "Do you have any idea when?"

"It would have been a Tuesday afternoon, between four forty-five and five thirty. Whoever took these shots had to have been sitting at that table." Veronica pointed.

As the hostess tapped, Veronica looked around. She was getting a kind of an off vibe about this place for some reason.

"Вот," the hostess said, snapping Veronica out of her reverie. There were only five records. One was the wrong date, and two more were obviously for families with kids. That left two. 

"That was the same guy," the hostess said, then clapped her mouth shut and glanced around nervously.

"What guy?" Veronica pressed. The first receipt billed enough food for two; the other, from the next week, was less than half of that. Both had been paid in cash.

The hostess' eyes flicked back at—the kitchen?—again. 

"Пожалуйста. Anything you can remember—I promise I won't say who told."

"I don't know—I don't ask questions, you know? But you just get kind of—" She was speaking softly, turned in towards Veronica, eyes flicking up and about constantly; but she was speaking. "I didn't see anyone with a camera, but there was a guy who showed up twice. He had dark skin, I remember, but nothing else to mark. The second time he was by his lonesome, but the first time he was with a woman. Real professional, they looked, except the woman, she—" The hostess ran the fingers of one hand over the knuckles of the other significantly. 

Veronica touched her own knuckles reflectively, and then it struck her. 狗屎. Tattoos.

The complicated code of tattooing may have been adulterated over the years, but no one who valued his skin wore ornies on Gotham. The Jokerz had their costumes and face paint; the 堂 their little code and their meat cleavers. The Russian-speaking Bopы and Чёрты used tattoos to mark status. You could read a sufficiently old-fashioned crook's entire career, from juvie on up, by his tattoos. 

Чёрты were just a street gang; tattoos on a suit meant Bop. 

What were the Bopы doing blackmailing her parents? Better question: what did the Bopы have to do with the Lilly Kane attack? There hadn't been even a whisper of mob involvement in the case until now. How could—

Veronica's hand-held rang while she was still contemplating the Дворянина steering wheel. "喂. Nail your bail-jumper?" 

"Ten metres from his ship, fifteen seconds before blast-off. Twenty-five hundred plat, baby!"

"All that and he cooks, too," Veronica said in her airhead voice.

"You better believe it, милый. Tonight, we eat like the lower middle-class to which we aspire!"

Veronica laughed despite herself. She thought she heard Mama thumping him with a pillow on the other end of the line.

"Серьёзно, steaks. Soon's you get home."

"Shiny."

Mama had to have told Da something, or else the photos wouldn't have been in the safe with the rest of the file. The question was, what weren't they telling her?

 

Veronica was distracted all the next day. She'd thought she'd had a focussing problem yesterday, but it was amazing how distracting it could be, having your entire world turned upside down. You'd think she'd have remembered the feeling. 

Since she didn't have much of an appetite anyway, Veronica spent lunch hunched over her dedicated source box. Dana tried to wave her over to her table, but there were too many people she'd rather avoid there. Of course, that could be said of any occupied table in the courtyard. She just couldn't wait until the weather forced them all inside again.

Searches into the Aladdin Café turned up mostly boring, except the building it occupied was owned by a company Veronica recognised, after five minutes' unsuccessful back-searching, as being a shell company owned by the Ворами. Ну, if she hadn't been convinced before, she was now. 

Unfortunately, that was about all she could do today. The urgency of studying for the CATs somehow paled in comparison to finding out the mob was using you to blackmail your parents, though. 

"Hey, come on in. Sorry about the mess. At least the parents are still at the office."

Dana looked around curiously. "Casey Gant offered to bet me ten plat that you had shrunken heads hanging in here. I should've taken him up on it."

"Alas, the shrunken heads had to go." Veronica spread her hands helplessly. "Backup kept trying to play fetch with them."

"What's this? Batman?" Dana asked, noticing the wall-consuming pinboard. "Oh, the reward."

"Will get me all the way to New Antares University, if I can get in."

Batman. You did not grow up in Gotham without hearing about Batman, like you didn't grow up in the Empire—sorry, they were part of the _Alliance_ now—without hearing about Collin Sri'vastra, or in the known universe without hearing about Captains Kathryn Janeway and Adam Pontipee.

"Everyone knows the story. He was active for forty-five years, between 3434 and 3479. Batman and his various associates worked with, or more often around, the police. Not the friendliest guy in the world; but weirdness and the population of Arkham aside, between them he and Commissioner Furillo almost managed to clean Gotham up."

"Until he died."

"A lot of people assumed he did, but I'm not convinced. I've dug up all the old news stories and as many of the police reports as I could get my hands on. No one reports seeing him killed, and there were no bodies reported that matched the description. I didn't even have to do my own digging: the news did it for me. They were pretty intensely interested at the time."

Dana was surveying the POLICE USE ONLY flimsies she'd printed out and tacked to the board. "Where did you get all this?"

"Commissioner Gilmore is my grandmother. I told her it was for an article in the school paper."

"But you're not on the paper—hey! If the commissioner's your grandmother, that means your Mama must be—"

"Lorelai Gilmore III. Yeah. She says it's easier to be an investigative reporter if you keep a low profile."

"Wow. My da always loved her articles. I guess now I know why she stopped writing."

Did she? That was the reason Mama had given everyone, standing by her man; but it had never rung quite true. Veronica had never known her mother to back down from a knock-down, balls-out fight. _Gilmore family tradition_ , she said. But what else could it be? Lily Kane in a coma might have been enough to lose Keith Mars' job, but they could, for example, have kept their old house on Dray Street if Mama hadn't quit the newspaper for the thrilling world of private investigation.

Of course, it might have had something to do with the pictures of her daughter in a bull's-eye. _Shake it off, Mars._ "She says it's a very fine line between being a reporter and being a Private Eye."

"I guess." Dana was still eyeing her honestly-not-serial-killer-at-all wall of obsession. It was a good thing she didn't keep the Lilly Kane stuff in hard copy, for more reasons than one. "You don't think it's the same guy, do you?"

Veronica walked over and stared at the flimsies. "Not a chance. Besides the fact that the original Batman would be at least a hundred years old by now, I've examined the footage. There isn't a lot of it, but the guy had to be 190 centimetres tall and at least 100 kilos. The new Bat is almost ten centimetres shorter and way less massive."

"So it's just a copy-cat; I'm kind of disappointed."

"Maybe, but look at this. His costume, suit, whatever, isn't the classic outfit—you know, the one everybody's familiar with, black, grey, and gold. But the original Bat wore it, or something similar, for six years before he disappeared. If the new guy's just trading on the name, why not go for the suit that would get him maximum recognition?"

"He could have found the suit," Dana pointed out. 

"Можно. Or he could be connected to the original Bat somehow. One of the Robins? 兒子? 孫子? He's definitely studied the original. Despite their...how shall I put this? unsavoury reputation, the Bats have been surprisingly low on the body count. Nothing charges would stick on, anyway. They didn't even carry guns. It was pretty much all judo, mental or otherwise."

"And the new Batman's following the same pattern."

Veronica nodded, drawn in all over again despite everything. Whoever Batman was, he had been smart, and so was his successor. She could almost sense the shape of the mind behind the myth, the concealment, the mission. Whatever outline her subconscious teased from the mountains of facts had altered but not broken. "There's a pattern all right. Tell you what else," Veronica added, deliberately lightening the mood. "He's connected with our school somehow. Willy Watt, Mason, that mess when Doctor Billings went psycho, and a half dozen other incidents. In a city of thirty million people? I don't figure it could be a coincidence."

_That_ got Dana's attention. "You mean like a student? Someone we know?"

"Probably. A student, or a teacher; maybe a coach. It's a big school, after all."

Dana giggled. "Think Vice-Principle Clemmons is having a mid-life crisis? 太瘋狂的."

"Наверно что нет. My best guess is that the new Bat is somewhere between sixteen and thirty-six. He's also definitely male, maybe 175 centimetres tall or so, and either lives on his own or has really clueless parents. He's been spotted as late as five in the morning."

"哇." Dana shook her head. "Have to say, I'm impressed."

Veronica shrugged. "Everyone's gotta have a psycho-obsessive hobby, 好阿?"

 

The next round of CATs were in two weeks, and it reminded Veronica of the tenuous chain of events her future depended on. CATs, GPA, ferreting out the identity that Batman had kept hidden for almost eighty years. But as heavy as she felt the future pressing down, the draw of the past was even stronger. If she lived to be two hundred, Veronica wouldn't rest until she'd unravelled the tangled conspiracy surrounding her comatose best friend.

Which was why she was driving out to the Heights today after school, straight into the heart Bopов territory. She didn't know precisely what she was going to do there, but the Bopы had threatened her life, and she was going to figure out why.

The song on the radio ended just as she turned off the freeway. _"That was Men with Little Heads'_ Giant Table. _Coming up, some more classic rock with a new release by Strange Fruit. But first, mark your calendars: the circus is coming to town! Blüdhaven's famous acrobatic troupe Nothing Solid to See will be bringing home Gotham's prodigal son this winter. Dick Grayson, adopted son of—"_

Veronica parked, making sure to lock her doors. It was only a few blocks to the Trans-Siberian Restaurant; she'd go the rest of the way on foot.

Nikolai Luzhin, head Воров. In his office. Those windows must have been bullet-proof glass, or he'd never leave the blinds open. Looked like a cone of silence, too, from the burring of the lips. Modern surveillance was just getting harder and harder. You could still see who he was meeting, though. Alright, if you found the right rooftop; Nikolai's office was on the second floor, and she had to admit that the angle: pretty awkward. She was surprised he had the blinds drawn even so, but the Bopы had made a show of being all sunshine and unicorns since Nikolai took over. 

While the blackmail photos had been taken before the changeover last Yuletide, nobody with half a brain believed the Bopы had gone straight. Especially since there had been two attempts on Nikolai's life in as many weeks, by person or syndicate unknown, the second having been only last night. So, answering the question _do your parents know where you are right now?_ Veronica's was: _hell no._

An hour or two passed with nothing major. Veronica had a chance to catch up on her homework, when she could make herself look away. Then, suddenly—whoa. Somebody was telling that door who was boss. Ballsy; Nikolai was in there right now. Come to think of it, shouldn't there be goons guarding his door? She hadn't seen anything that looked like a hit squad pull up. Too bad she could only see one face of the building.

It wasn't a hit squad. It was Terry McGinnis, Dana's 流氓的 ex. 

McGinnis stormed in like he owned the place, with a metric tonne of bad attitude and an expression that made her re-think the whole hit scenario. Nikolai did not seem very concerned. Stood up unhurriedly and made no attempt to keep articles of heavy furniture between them. Why wasn't he going for his gun?

McGinnis did not stop. He got right up in Nikolai's personal space—looked like he really was _exactly_ as stupid as Veronica thought—and fucking _shoved_ him. 

Nikolai put him into a wall, of course. Veronica naturally expected for this to be followed by a thorough and unpleasant beating, or whatever the mob chic was these days. 

McGinnis just looked pissed. He batted Nikolai's hand away and was slammed back by both shoulders. When Nikolai kissed him, Veronica half expected McGinnis to commit suicide and deck him. Instead, he reversed their positions, and Veronica could see that he already had one hand down Nikolai's pants. 

She watched, hypnotised, as McGinnis pushed Nikolai back into the wall for emphasis and then slid to his knees. Богородица, she should not be watching this. McGinnis was swallowing Nikolai's cock, letting tattooed hands hold his head in place. _牠是所有 地獄的 婊子 的 嫣_. She felt better about ratting out Terry's lying ass now, but less sure that Terry was actually a Bop thug. Would Dana recognise kinky sex bruises? If he was Bop, he was a lot more important than they'd thought. And, more importantly, easier to tail than Nikolai himself.

Veronica waited in a state of sort of horrified abstraction for a prudent while after they left, probably to find a bedroom, then gathered her things and poured herself downstairs. Whatever she'd come looking for, she sure had something now. Slow and steady was the trick; she deeply did not want to get noticed now. Just slide into the car and out onto the street; Veronica heaved a sigh of relief when the Дворянин lifted with an only slightly strained hum. 

For a second, she was thrown back in memory to last Friday in the parking lot, trying to pry the second of three electromagnets off her AG unit.

_"Stuck?" an unfamiliar voice asked._

_"That's what they all say."_

Veronica shook her head and merged onto the freeway with some relief. Troy was cute enough, she supposed, but he had no idea what he was getting into.

_Do I?_ she wondered an hour later, staring at the Wave she was about to send. Twenty minutes to get home, thirty to find McGinnis' Wave code, and ten to gather her nerve.

_McGinnis—I know what you're really doing after school. Meet me in Olderoy Park, by the fountain, tomorrow at five o'clock, or I'll blow your secret sky-high._

A little melodramatic, maybe, but subtlety was overrated at times like these. Veronica wanted to be sure he got the message.

Bracing herself, she hit _發_. Now for the rest of the prep work.

Veronica woke abruptly in the middle of the night, her heart pounding until she remembered what day this was and realised what the muffled click of the front door shutting meant. She rubbed her eyes and shuffled to the doorway. "Баб'шка?"

"親愛的, go back to sleep. I'll see you at the party."

"好阿." Veronica yawned. "Спокойной ночи." 

"Спи, милый." 

Veronica lay back down, listening to the thumps as Da rolled out of bed and lumbered into the kitchen for a glass of water. The four a.m. ritual of Mama's birthday story was a low, comforting rumble of voices through the wall in a week full of strangeness and broken glass.

 

No word from McGinnis yet as of the end of school; of course, she hadn't really expected any. Veronica checked the folder in her bag, again, and headed in to the office to do some deskwork. 

"—is that a picture of—?"

"Yes."

"Doing—?"

"Yes."

"Uhhgk. Do we still want to take his case?"

"Well, we weren't actually intending to take pictures of him—"

"Hi, Veronica!" Mama interrupted, loudly.

"Oh, hey, kiddo. Listen, why don't you stay away from the Ontzlake case."

"Hey, guys. Find out something _new_ on the Ontzlake case?'

"No, just on Mister Ontzlake," Mama said brightly. Da winced.

"Dare I ask?" Veronica dropped her bag by the front desk and went over to lean on doorframe.

"I really wish you wouldn't," Da muttered.

"Shiny. Hey there, boy," she addressed Backup, scratching his ears and receiving a doggy grin in return.

Mama kissed them each on the cheek and headed for the door. 

"Куда ты идешь?"

"To watch Vinnie Van Lowe try and bribe the attendants at Kolya's Celestial Spa and Jujitsu Parlour. Again." 

"Birthday treat," Mama elucidated.

"Ah-ha. Have fun. Take pictures!"

"You bet!" Mama called over her shoulder.

Da looked up from his desk. "Can I help you with something?"

Veronica, who'd been chewing indecisively on her lower lip, unbit it and straightened. "Nope," she replied after the slightest hesitation. 

Da sighed and got up, slinging an arm around her shoulders. "You okay, kiddo? You've been 一點兒 quiet these past coupla days. You wanna talk about anything?"

_Yeah, Da; how about we discuss why Mama took us off the Kane case? Or how you never stopped investigating Lilly's attack? Or hey, here's an idea, what you found out that got the Воров to put a target on my forehead._

No; now wasn't the time. Once she talked to McGinnis tonight, she could get him to find out for her what the Bopы had to do with the Lilly Kane case. Close as he was to Nikolai, he could probably find out anything he liked. So what if Terry McGinnis wanted to have sex with scary men? He was eighteen. But Veronica just bet he didn't want his little scandal bandied about on the evening news.

As long as Mama and Da thought they were protecting her, they wouldn't tell her anything. If she found out for herself, maybe they'd let her in.

Veronica forced out a weak smile. "Nah. I just want to be working, y'know?"

"好阿, 親愛的." He gave her shoulders another squeeze. "Out favourite PD's got a colour-blind stripper you can check out."

Veronica worked with one eye on the clock all afternoon. When Da came out of his office, stretching and talking about closing up early to go set up Mama's birthday party, Veronica begged off. "I just need to stop off and see someone from school about something. I'll be back in plenty of time."

Olderoy Park was on the border of Downtown and Old Town, the old, old downtown area. It could be pretty grotty in places; half the streets were cobbled rather than paved, and a lot of the bigger buildings like the theatre and the old courthouse were completely abandoned now. 

It was still a moderately safe neighbourhood; the gangs were mostly confined to the Hill and the Narrows now, and it was still a little too close to the Воров home base for there to be any 堂 shenanigans going on. All she had to worry about tonight were the Ворах, and apparently they'd been threatening her all along. Veronica felt like she'd been walking around for the better part of a year with a lasersight on her forehead and everyone else had been too polite to say anything.

Well, with any luck, McGinnis would be taking care of that tonight. Veronica let the Дворянин settle to the paving stones and let Backup out of the back seat. He hopped down and snuffled at her hand reassuringly. Veronica scratched his ears with one hand, fishing for his leash with the other. 

Veronica had been looking into Terry McGinnis since yesterday's little revelation. Father died last winter; Jokerz, according to the police report. He had a handful of moving violations, three months in juvie when he was fourteen or so. Kicked off the wrestling team last year for fighting, but everyone said it was for punching Nelson, so that wasn't necessarily indicative. 

His school file was thick as a brick, or would have been in hard copy. The guidance counsellor's office said he'd been holding a steady part-time job, despite not being able to stay awake in class, when he bothered to show up at all. His grades were all over the place; no surprise there, except for a sporadic handful of surprisingly high marks in math.

School records wouldn't really hold what she was looking for. She had never really known Terry McGinnis, but Dana had stuck by him for over almost two years, and Dana was one of the few nice people left at Hill High; she'd thought that might mean something. So what was Terry? An angry kid, pushed over the edge by his father's senseless murder? Had he gone over to the Ворах in order to protect what was left of his family? A risky proposition at best. In this game, family was a weapon to be used against you. Hostages and targets. But some things were worth protecting.

Well, here she was. Veronica looked around, the backside of Colonel Olderoy's statue across the green fading a little as the light dimmed, although the giant floating ball fountain behind her hadn't lit up yet. Five o'clock. Showtime. 

Er, maybe not? It had been almost twenty-four hours; McGinnis _had_ to have checked his Waves by now. He was an urban teenager, wasn't he? not some rube from Whitefall. Why didn't he just check his messages so she could blackmail him already?

Veronica chafed her arms nervously, then to still them checked Mister Taser in his easy-access pocket. Gotham's sky was never what you'd call bright, even outside the city; not like the terraformed water-blue of planets like Risa, or even a fresh and wholesome-looking aquamarine like the Rim world Harvest. No, Gotham had more of a...maroon-ish patina that somehow got brighter at night, while simultaneously radiating less light. No wonder so many people here went psycho.

Veronica jerked her eyes back down to park-level when Backup let out a small _rup!_ and rocked to his feet. That was...more than one person coming towards her. _Uh-oh._

"Terry?" Veronica's voice sounded tinny to her ears, like a bad recording.

An unsavoury chuckle came floating back to her through the increasingly sinister evening light. "Ты ждешь кого-то, душеньк?"

"Did McGinnis send you? He too much of a coward to come himself, 是嗎?"

"That twink doesn't give orders. You should not intrude on what is not your business."

"And how do you know what my business is?" There were three goons, and they were getting closer.

"If you cannot tell, then we will teach you," the central goon, apparently the only one of the group to have mastered the art of speech, threatened baldly.

Veronica went for the taser. Backup took the guy on the right; unfortunately, this left Central Goon, now clearly marking himself out as the mental giant of the bunch, free to grab her from behind. 

The judo throw that sent Mister Grab-Your-Jacket-Collar-Like-You're-A-Puppy flying dirtwards came easily enough, even though she'd never used it on an actual goon before. Central Goon _thump_ ed and rolled, the taser skittered, and Backup backed up to her to regroup. 

A heavy boot came down on her hand just before it reached the taser, but her other was pulling out her hand-held and fumbling with the touch screen for grandmamma's name. She was getting a pretty good view of Backup's jaws clamped on a goon-ish shin down here; possibly, she should have paid more attention to strategy in that self-defence class. 

Veronica snatched her hand out from under the now-kicking boot, scooted out from the mêlée, and put the fountain at her back. She managed to press Lorelai 外婆的 call-code just before all three of the variously limping, presumably Bop thugs descended on her. 

She dodged a punch and kneed a groin, sending her hand-held flying. Where were those creepy new hoverdrones when you needed one?

"Сука!" 

Someone knocked her inevitably into the fountain; but instead of letting her flail her way out and run away like a girl, he then held her under. The water was tepid, and the fountain pool, slippery metal that she scrabbled at uselessly. Her lungs were burning and she could feel her kicking legs losing force, not that they were connecting with anything in any case; and how was someone holding her down and she couldn't find him to kick, anyway? She wasn't _that_ short and oh, god she was going to _die_ like this.

There was a sudden lack of pressure on Veronica's back. The water went crazy, and it took a moment for Veronica to figure out which way was air. 

For a minute after she hauled herself up, she thought she was hallucinating. It was too _fast_ , a large, inky blur surrounded by a lot of meaty flesh-thumping sounds. _Batman?_

"大象 爆炸時 的 拉肚子."

_"Veronica?"_

Veronica blinked and shook her head, but the whispering continued.

_"Mnn shh Veronica."_

She stared around stupidly. It wasn't Batman, or the now nicely unconscious Bop goons. 

_"Veronica! Answm mn gnnm."_

Her hand-held; shiny. Veronica stumbled over to it, tripping over the edge of the fountain. 

"Grandmamma?" Veronica quavered. She was shaking now. Still? Shaking, but standing now, too, across the fountain from Batman—and, alas, her taser.

"Veronica! 你仕哪裡? Что происходит? 你好嗎?"

"I'm fine; I'm fine," Veronica gasped; she sure didn't _sound_ fine, even to her own ears. "I'm in Olderoy Park, by the fountain. Batman is with me."

This stopped Batman, who was just on the verge of—of flying off, Veronica supposed. He shot her a flat look that was vividly familiar for an instant. _Wait a minute._

"好—yeah. I'm okay now. I'm—" Sirens were already dopplering closer; and okay, Police HQ was only about ten blocks away, but damn. "—yeah, I'll wait here. Grandmamma—Commissioner Gilmore says, if you leave before she gets here, she's going to make you eat a batarang. 懂嗎?" Veronica repeated to Batman.

Veronica was starting to feel better—adrenaline, maybe—but she was still dripping from her encounter with the fountain, and every little puff of breeze made her shiver. Batman showed no signs of having heard except for the way his eyes narrowed even more, but he didn't make a move to leave again. He'd hit those goons pretty hard; none of them was stirring yet.

"No—no, 外婆. I was just—yeah, the reward. Yeah, I see them now." Veronica smoothed her voice as much as she could. She kept glancing over at Batman, like if she looked directly at him, he'd disappear in a puff of tar and embers. She could indeed see an aircar, presumably belonging to the Batman team at Major Crimes—Bailey and Noël, she thought—coming down nearly on top of them, no doubt soon to be followed by Grandmamma's own.

By the time Grandmamma arrived, Veronica had fished her bag out of the fountain. Thankfully, there had been nothing irreplaceably electronic in there. She itched to talk to Batman while she had him cornered, but she couldn't very well do that with a direct line to her esteemed maternal ancestor glued to her ear. The more she watched him, though, the more sure she was.

Batman had been looking more and more cagey around Major Crimes while they poked around, which was quite a sight as the detectives were only on the scene for something like thirty seconds before the Commissioner descended and Batman gave her a curt nod and jetted off.

Grandmamma surrounded her with a very serious hug, while they and the crime scene and the goons were surrounded by squad cars, an ambulance complete with EMTs, and a silly scratchy blanket. Although you'd think in a harbour city they'd have towels, too.

"Hey, are you okay, baby?" Grandmamma Lorelai asked. Well, asked again, but this time she let Veronica up for enough air to actually answer her.

"I got a little bit too close to the action." Veronica sniffed, then kicked herself for it. What the hell did she need to go and get a cold for?

Grandmamma chafed her arms through the blanket. "Impressed as I am with your tracking down Batman, let's try and give it a wider berth next time." Her voice was strained.

"Yeah. Hey, um, d'you think we can kind of just keep this between the two of us? Just for tonight? I'm not, uh, really supposed to be...following...Batman...around?" Veronica smiled hopefully over the bad ambulance coffee Grandmamma passed her. "And I really don't want to ruin Mama's birthday. Again."

"Aww, honey. They're gonna know you fell in the water."

" _Grandmamma_."

"Downplay it as much as you like, kid; they're gonna know something's up." 

" _Pleeease?_ " Veronica hitched the blanket tighter around herself. "I promise, I'll talk to them about it tomorrow. And you. And the police! Even though it was seriously just me being a spaz.

"Uh-huh." Grandmamma gave her a fishy sort of look. "Drink your coffee. Let's at least get you back up to normal human body temperature."

 

**Interlude (GCPD)**

Police Commissioner Lorelai Gilmore stepped briskly out of the lift tube and looked around the Major Case Squad bullpen. Commissioner Gilmore was a tall woman in her mid-sixties, made taller by a pair of shiny black heels. Her grey-streaked hair was loose, falling to her shoulders in dark waves. There were fine lines around the pale skin of the Commissioner's eyes and mouth, both set today in determination. Her blue eyes picked up hard grey glints from her three piece suit. It was quite an effectively imposing display, spoiled only slightly by the styrofoam coffee cup in her hand.

"Incoming," muttered Detective Miranda Bailey under her breath. 

Detective Tessa Noël spared her a wry glance before rising to her feet. It was a Saturday morning, so the bullpen was half-empty and abnormally subdued (Tessa blamed the latter on the decorating scheme). It was abundantly clear that Commissioner Gilmore was heading for their desks.

Miranda levered herself to her feet and turned in the direction of the squad coffee pot. The _empty_ coffee pot; she could be gone _forever.Крыса._

"Coward," Tessa hissed.

"It is too early in the morning for me to get a crick in my neck staring up at some politician."

Bailey strutted off, ignoring Tessa's furious glare. The _clack_ of the commissioner's approaching footsteps recalled Tessa to her dignity, if nothing else, and she swivelled back around, pasting a polite smile on her face.

"Detective Noël?"

"Commissioner. It's nice to meet you."

They shook hands. Tessa had to admit, Gilmore _was_ tall; taller than her, anyway, and would be even without the heels. Miranda would be about eye to eye with her cleavage. Tessa tried to gather her thoughts and not just stare at at Gilmore's coffee like a flash junkie after a fix.

"From the South Bay, aren't you?" Gilmore asked.

Tessa made a face; she had never been able to quite erase that accent. "Yes, my parents still insist I speak with them only по-Русски."

Gilmore gave her a conspiratorial grin. "Mine made me use 中文. So what have you got on the Batman thing from yesterday? Veronica's coming in later, right?" 

"Yes, she called just a minute ago. It doesn't seem to be very serious, except the men Batman apprehended appear to be Ворами. Since we've been as yet unsuccessful in persuading Batman to come in and make a statement, the only one talking is your granddaughter."

 

And with a straight face she said that. From all Lorelai had heard, Noël and her partner were less than happy with being the 'Batman Desk' at Major Crimes. _I feel like somebody's maid, chasing around after him with a broom and a dust pan_ , was how Noël had put it, according to Columbo. 

"Close call with the car last week." It came out as deadpan as she could manage. _Luke_ had laughed with her on that one. It hadn't actually been bad thinking, as far as on-the-spot tactics went, except for that little problem with the doors.

"Yes, ma'am."

"He just kinda punched right through it, huh?" Lorelai sipped her coffee. Before Detective Noël could actually implode, she continued, "Look, I know you guys have other cases on your desk; and I'm guessing you don't think the department is taking this investigation seriously enough. But I was on the force thirty years ago, when Batman disappeared. I was on the force _forty_ years ago, when he was still flying around out there." A vague sort of swooping gesture. "I don't want the police fighting a war with Batman if we don't have to. But it's important that someone other than the vidnews keep an eye on him. 對不對?"

"I understand," Noël said. That wasn't really an answer, but it would do.

"We don't know this guy like we knew the old Bat. I want to know if he puts one pointy ear out of line."

"And what will you do if he does?" Noël asked, meeting her gaze squarely.

"如果 he goes far enough, I'll authorise a take-down. For now, it's the waiting game. Tough luck, kid." More coffee. "Keep me posted on Veronica's case." Although she was much less likely to discuss it with Veronica's parents or even Veronica than with Bruce Wayne.

"Конечно, Commissioner."

"謝謝. Keep up the good work."

 

Tessa sank back down behind her desk with a decided slump as Gilmore _click_ ed back to the lift tube and rose into the convolutions of Police Administration whence she'd come. Her staring contest with the brownish wall—last (or perhaps first) decorated during a period of fascination with tiles, which they would never get the allocations to replace unless the entire floor caught fire, or was bombed out, or something equally dramatic—was interrupted by a mug from which wafted the enticing aroma of 藍土 grounds. The good stuff; either Miranda was actually feeling a bit sheepish, or she wanted the dirt. She looked up into a freckled brown face and penetrating brown eyes. Oh, she wanted the dirt. 

"This is such a waste of time," Tessa said instead. Well, if Miranda wanted to know what Commissioner Gilmore wanted, she should have stuck around.

"Mm-hm," Miranda said, settling in behind her desk with her own mug of coffee. 

"War on Batman." Tessa snorted. "He meets with the Chief of Police on the top of this building, for god's sake! How hard could it be to set up a sting at Police Headquarters? We don't need a war, we need a butterfly net!"

"You perfected thermoptic camouflage yet?" Miranda asked pointedly.

Tessa sighed and slumped in her chair. "No amount of tracking down thirty-year-old leads is going to help us find the new Bat, you know."

"I know."

Tessa gave her partner the fish-eye. "I know that tone."

"Well, I know you don't mind the collar on that assassin. Or those burglary operations. Or that crazy," Miranda made a descriptive gesture, "sound wave guy."

"Who went straight to Arkham."

They shared a Look. 

"Your point is?"

"I can be patient. Bat-boy's gonna screw up sometime. Meantime, you want to ask existential questions, ask yourself why Batman stepped in to save Nikolai Luzhin last week."

Tessa opened her, mouth, then shut it again thoughtfully. Miranda looked smug. "That's what I thought."

 

**Part Two (Terry)**

Terry slouched down to the Batcave Saturday morning none too early and with a lot on his mind. He recognised immediately, however, Veronica Mars facing down the old man in the middle of the rogue's gallery. _Oh,狗屎._

"Veronica! 什—I mean, how—I mean что же вы делаете здесь?"

Veronica's head jerked up and around. Her mouth set in a line of grim satisfaction. "Terry McGinnis. So I was right."

"Right about, wait—Bruce—"

"A little slow for Batman, isn't he?"

"He still gets surprised sometimes. We're working on it." Bruce gave her his scary-Batman-humour smirk. Terry winced; message received. "But the question remains valid: what are you doing here?" 

"Well, in an hour I have an appointment to talk with the GCPD about what happened yesterday. What do you think I ought to tell the detectives over at Major Crimes?"

This past year had certainly honed her aggression. Terry had finally managed to unstick himself from the stairway and get himself into a more tactically useful position. Reluctantly, he had to give Veronica credit for balls, if nothing else; she wasn't flinching under the old man's patented ten-tonne stare. Looked a bit like she was setting herself to stand a tidal wave, but she wasn't flinching.

"What do you want?" the old man asked bluntly.

"I want in."

"In? _In?_ " Terry blurted. "Uh-uh, no way. You've got no idea what you're getting into."

Bruce gave him a dry look; Terry remained unimpressed. Bruce lifted one eyebrow in agreement that Terry translated expertly as _one of you is more than enough_. Still, he said, "And you did?"

"Someone—" Terry shot a cautious look at Veronica; no need to compromise things here more than they were already, "—killed my father.  И _никто_ was going to do anything about it if I didn't."

"And a year ago, someone beat Lilly Kane into a coma. There were seventeen things wrong with that arrest, but all anyone has done since is wait for the crime to kick up from assault to murder. Even Batman." And her cold blue eyes were on Terry now.

Bruce leaned forward infinitesimally, and Terry gave vent to an inward groan. "What makes you think there's more—"

They were mercifully interrupted by a vid-Wave. Or not so mercifully, on second thought, considering the number of people who could or would actually Wave the Batcave.

"Здравствуйте." 

He was right.

"Lorelai; to what do I owe the pleasure?"

"You can stuff your society act, Bruce. Just keep your mini-me away from my granddaughter." Commissioner Gilmore was even more furious than she'd been when Curare almost sliced her husband's head off. Circumspectly, Terry checked to make sure he was outside the range of the vid pick-up.

"I could ask you to keep your granddaughter away from my protégé, but as I recall that never worked with you." Bruce seemed to find this all somehow amusing.

"Oh, I don't know. I managed not to talk to you for almost fifty years."

"You always were stubborn." Bruce was almost _smiling_.

Gilmore scowled. "Don't flirt with me, you dried-up old prune. This is how it will be. I will not arrest you, and in return you and your pointy-ear little valet will stay away from all members of my family, most especially my granddaughter. You will not in any way encourage her to become the same sort of suicidal, extra-legal—She's right there, isn't she? Veronica, honey, please be a smart girl and turn the crazy men in for the ridiculous stacks of reward money."

Veronica edged into view of the the vid pick-up. "Hi, Grandmamma. Uh, how do you know Wayne 先生?"

"I dressed up in a costume and chased after him for four years. Take it from me, kiddo, it's not nearly as much fun as it looks on the news."

"If I were looking for a cheap thrill, I'd find a bucking bronco to ride."

"Well, then what is it about, милый мы? " Gilmore switched to a softer line. "Huh, can't we talk about this? There has to be some other solution than—putting on a spandex suit and jumping off buildings."

"It's about justice," Veronica said.

Gilmore pursed her lips. "Mm, you're gonna need to be 只一點兒 more specific."

Veronica took a deep breath, and said in a much less belligerent tone, "It's about Lilly Kane."

"Veronica, 親愛的, that case was solved."

"No, Grandmamma, that case was _shut._ Because it was _politically expedient_. Well, you've had a year to fix it; сейчас это моя очередь." Gilmore rubbed her forehead. "Господи. I am not endorsing this. Veronica, we'll talk later. Bruce—" she stared helplessly from Wayne to Veronica and back again, "—send her home."

She moved to cut the comm, then hesitated. "And one more thing, Bruce. No DNA testing. Of any kind."

Commissioner Gilmore's imaged winked out. Terry expelled a long breath. "Intense."

"That's Grandmamma," Veronica agreed. 

"DNA testing?" Terry asked, fixing on the most interesting point.

"Never mind," Bruce replied quellingly. "I'm more interested in what Mars 小姐 is doing here in the first place."

_Bet you're not_ , Terry thought, but he kept his mouth shut. This, at least, he was making progress on. 

For the first time since Terry walked in on this tableau, Veronica looked less than steam-roller certain. She hugged herself, shoulders hunching just a little as she glanced at him. She looked suddenly very strange, in her red sweater and blue jeans with her hair pulled up and clipped back and a leather jacket like that made her look tough. Terry raised his eyebrows blandly, waiting.

Veronica glanced from Bruce to Terry and back again, watching for a reaction. "I've been looking for Batman, but that wasn't why I was in the park last night. The Воры were blackmailing my parents sometime last year. They threatened to kill me, and it had something to do with the Lilly Kane case. So I—found some evidence that lead me to believe Terry could tell me all about the Ворах."

_Stop looking at me like that, old man_. "And how did you get from that to Batman?" Terry asked, mostly to be taking the initiative, since he was pretty sure he knew the answer already.

"Well, when you didn't show up, I assumed _you'd_ sicced the goons on me. But then someone else did show up; and when I got some oxygen back into my brain, I started to wonder how Batman had found me _just_ in time. You really should check your Waves more often."

"Yeah; I'll get right to work on making myself easier to blackmail. Прямо сейчас." 

"It wasn't really that difficult," Veronica shot back.

"Children," Bruce interrupted. "Later. Mars 小姐, I believe you have an appointment."

"And what do I tell the police?"

"Tell the police whatever you like." Bruce turned back to his console with, Terry was pretty sure, moderately spurious indifference

Veronica glared at him. Then she glared at Terry, who for the sake of avoiding jail-time and worse attempted manfully to smother a snicker into blandness. After all, exposing them meant exposing her grandmamma the commissioner as well. A stroke of wholly undeserved good luck, as Bruce would no doubt point out to him, at length, just as soon as they got rid of Veronica. 

"Я вернусь," Veronica warned.

"Я выжду," Terry muttered under his breath. He watched Veronica's ponytail bounce up the narrow, winding steps with a sinking feeling in his gut. 

Bruce swivelled his chair back around and stared at him for a long time after she left. Terry spent a lot of effort looking at anything but Bruce. Finally, he took the damn Batsuit down and started spot-checking the circuitry.

Bruce just kept staring, his eyes heavy on the top of Terry's head. 

"Why are you actually considering this?" Terry finally broke down and asked.

Bruce stood and walked over, a concession of sorts. "She's right; there was always something odd about the Kane case."

"And she reminds you of Gilmore?"

The look he got for that was not friendly. "They both have the right attitude."

Terry sighed and reluctantly disgorged his information. "When her father lost the Sheriff gig, her parents set up together as PIs. I think she works for them. I never knew her very well, and the gossip around school now is hardly an objective opinion. They say some pretty nasty things about her; even I've picked it up."

"That's high school for you."

"Want me to check her out?"

"I'll do the checking, for now. Once you've finished with the suit, your aikido could do with some tidying up as well."

Terry grunted; well, it was better than being verbally flayed for his indiscretions.

"And what was all that about DNA testing?"

"If you like, we can also continue your lessons in krav maga," Bruce said, not even raising his voice.

"What do I ask about to get another round of survival training?"

He could almost feel the temperature drop. _Когда-нибудь, мне_ надо _учиться делать это_. Terry smirked in private amusement and bent over the VDR.

Despite the old man's threats, Terry was still able to move by the time he went out on patrol that night. The next morning was another question, however. Terry cracked cracked one eye open after a restful five whole hours of sleep at the blaring klaxon of his alarm. It took a long moment of mental evaluation before he decided he could probably make his arm move enough to key it off. 

He'd sleep in more, except this was the time he had to do his homework for the week. How _had_ the Robins managed it? Terry supposed they hadn't had to go out every night. More likely, Bruce home-schooled them and just lied shamelessly to Child Services. 

"來吧, Terry. Or you won't graduate Hill High and you'll have to spend a year in remedial classes with a bunch of Чёртов and Dick Casablancas," he reminded himself. "Uungk."

This last was the sound of Terry sitting up. Stretching was painful, but restored to him something like his normal range of motion. He took a long, hot shower, pulled on sweats, and settled in with some toast and his tablet. 

After he'd worked through integrals to parallaxes and into _Collected Antistrophes of Kailen the Fox_ and there were nothing but crusts left of his breakfast, Terry flicked his homework aside and pulled up something a tad more vital. 

Notes on the assassination attempts. This was probably one of the main reasons Gilmore was so prickly about her granddaughter involving herself, besides the recent re-emergence of some of the darker denizens of the night. Terry could personally do without having to explain the awkward and highly personal chain of events that led to his intimacy with the police mole currently masquerading as the de-facto leader of Gotham's largest crime syndicate to anyone, let alone a teenage girl. 

The first attempt had been almost two weeks ago, and Terry had been starting to hope it had been a one-time thing, some crackpot with a grudge. And then three nights ago, someone had tried it again, and he hadn't found out until the next afternoon, which had precipitated the altercation in Nikolai's office which he imagined Veronica must have caught the end of. 

If a body was gunning for the boss Воров, that was the normal course of business. It would be mightily inconvenient for Terry, who was still trying to tie the Воров around Derrick Powers' ankles like a lead weight. He'd been skittish as a colt for almost a year, and just when he started to dance a little closer, some дрянь started taking aim at Nikolai with RPGs. 

Now, if it so happened that a body was instead taking aim at a dirty, low-down, deceiving traitor, they had a much more serious problem. Starting with, why anonymous attacks and not the entirety of Gotham's underworld falling on their heads? It was only half reassuring.

A thumping and scuffling from the back of the apartment said Matt was finally awake. Mama had been through earlier to frown at his coffee mug and pour one of her own. She was in the living room now, scanning the morning news reports.

Terry scowled down at the details, which were sparse. Also in contemplation of the morning peace and quiet, which was about to be sparser. Nikolai was being a closed-mouthed bastard, too, more even than usual. 蠢人 would just wave it off until someone succeeded in blowing him up and his whole passel of useless bodyguards with him. Serve him right.

Terry had left his hand-held back in his bedroom. When it buzzed, his head snapped up and his neck cracked so loudly he thought he'd broken something. Mama looked up, too.

"I'll get it," he said, and was then faced with the problem of standing up without moving like a cripple. His knees especially seemed to have stiffened while he sat.

Scooping up the device, Terry flopped gratefully back on top of his rumpled covers. Just a message; unknown number. He frowned, pulled it up. 

It was just a signature: _V Mars_.

"太空 所有的 星球 塞進 我 的 屁股." Terry closed his eyes.

_How did you get this number?_ he messaged back contrarily. 

_You really have to ask?_ the answer came back almost immediately, and, _為什麼 我們 不 聊 面對面?_ along with a map-dot, some little place down near the Ferry, looked like.

"You're showing off," Terry said by way of greeting.

Veronica looked up at him, bright as the morning. "你會坐下嗎?"

Terry loomed there another minute, but her expression didn't change. _Fine, we all get it: I'm not impressed and you're not impressed._

A waiter came by then, and Terry ordered coffee and a sandwich. He missed enough meals in the usual course of events that he wasn't going to let a little thing like pride put itself between his stomach and lunch. 

He stared at Veronica; Veronica stared back. He paged once again through what he knew about Veronica Mars, which was mostly that she'd been a bit of a flake before Lilly Kane got clubbed over the head and she chose her family over her friends; since then, consensus was that she'd been a bit of a bitch. Both personality traits that agreed with her being Commissioner Gilmore's granddaughter, he had to say. If there was another reason for all the rumours running round about her at school, it hadn't come to his ear.

"So, are we here so you can ask me to Homecoming?"

"We're here so I can ask you about the Ворах. Unless I'm wildly mistaken, you have a certain amount of access." Yowch.

Terry sat back and squinted at her. "Yes and no. Thanks for not going into all the gruesome details, by the way."

"Does he know?"

"It's—complicated."

"I'll bet. Batman, dating the head Воров. It's so ridiculous I'm almost tempted to sell the story to a tabloid."

"If I ever tell you, it won't be aboveground," Terry said flatly.

Veronica held up her hands. "Понятно. None of my business. This," she pulled her hand-held out and fiddled with the display, " _is_ my business."

It was a shot of Veronica from across the street. Her hair was longer, and someone had shopped in a scope target around her head. Somewhere downtown, it looked like. The resolution wasn't great; probably not the original—

"Who took this?" Terry made a face. "You think Воры?"

"Who, I don't know exactly. When was last November, someone sitting at that café on Longeye Street that the Воры own, _Aladdin_. Someone remembered seeing someone suspicious. He came in once alone, but before that with a woman. Suits, both of them. And she had tattoos on her hands."

Terry tapped his fingers restlessly on the table. The man returned with their order, and Veronica pocketed her hand-held with its alarming contents.

"I'll check into it, but I can't promise much. Воры get a mite twitchy you ask too many questions about the old days."

"Thing is, I only got hold of this a few days ago. My parents had it in with information on the Kane attack; some kind of blackmail, obviously, except Da had already been ousted. Mama quit the paper right after, though." Veronica frowned, deep in thought.

Terry raised an eyebrow. "Your parents just upped and decided to tell you all this, did they?"

"I haven't had a chance to look at everything, but there was a keycard to a safety deposit box with the pictures."

"You check what's in it?"

"Not yet."

Terry took a large bite out of his sandwich and chewed it, thinking. _Let's try a little caution here, McGinnis._

"Just because I'm interested in this case doesn't mean you're stepping into your grandmother's shoes. I had to practically dynamite the old man before he agreed to give me a chance."

Veronica cocked her head to one side. "How _did_ you convince him?"

"Er." If his solution of stealing the suit didn't occur to her independently, Terry certainly wasn't about to suggest it. "Those were some nice moves the other day."

"Я кончилась под водой," Veronica pointed out.

"Yeah, but still," he pursued around the last of his sandwich. "You didn't learn that cheerleading."

Veronica shrugged. "Mother-daughter aikido lessons; it's sort of a family tradition. I guess I now I know why."

"Guess so. Must be weird for you."

"Matter of fact, it makes a certain amount of sense." Veronica shook her head. "She _never_ got into the Batman fad. _Никогда_. And that's not like her. Grandmamma has a strong opinion about everything."

"I'd noticed." 

"So, you gonna talk Wayne around for me?"

"Абсолютно нет." Terry dropped ten plat on the table and stood up. "再見."

"I'll be seeing you, McGinnis."

 

"Oh, crap!"

"Terry!"

"Sorry!"

Terry stuffed his tablet and homework discs into his bag, pulled his shirt on, and doubled back for his socks, trying to keep his swearing under his breath. He looked at the clock. "Твою мать."

Sleeping through first period would be more of a temptation if he'd slept at all well last night. You'd think that on two or three hours' sleep, he'd be out like a light whenever he got the chance. But never mind Veronica Mars poking her nose everywhere it didn't belong, or Inque ripping up half of the LuthorCorp facility last night; he still didn't know who was going after Nikolai. Probably the 堂. Couldn't be the cops; Belker and Gilmore would never authorise a hit on their own man. Crooked cops, maybe. But the money'd still be coming in from the outside. 堂, or the southerners. 

Running a hopeful hand through his bed-head, Terry made a break for the door. He really, really didn't have the energy to field maternal concern this morning, and he was already running late. Terry bet Wayne never ran late for anything less than five gunshot wounds and an airbus in peril and full of nuns escorting small children.

"Terrence McGinnis, you have time to eat a piece of toast while you put your shoes on at least."

The twip snickered into his breakfast groats. Terry felt powerful tempted to bang his head against the wall, only the morning's painkillers had just started doing their job and things were only now stopping hurting. He bet Wayne never forgot his shoes, either. 

"Hey, Terry, why are you still out so late if Dana dumped you? D'you got a new girlfriend?"

" _Have_ , Matthew," his Mama corrected and oh, hey. Why wasn't the _twip_ getting told off?

Terry glared at him around his toast. It was much, much easier when he slipped out before they woke up, although school after early morning training with Wayne was also mostly like torture. A lot of the time, he went to the library and did his homework, but he'd actually had time to finish it this weekend. What he'd really like to do was skip to pursue the new and disturbing Воры connexions in the year-old Lilly Kane attack case. If the original confession was bogus...well, maybe he was just sympathising with Veronica's trauma a little too much. But she was right about one thing: justice was justice.

Mama was watching him sort of wistful-like. He caught her doing that a lot these days, and her eyes looked so sad. Worse than they had after the divorce. Not as bad as after the funeral.

And Terry hated that, too; the way he was starting to analyse even his own family with Batman's calculation. Like he'd taken a step back and now couldn't figure how to step forward again.

Terry wished he could be here more, look after the twip, really be man of the house, shoulder some of the load; but there was no good in asking for what he couldn't carry. All he could do was give his mother a false smile as he blew out the door. 

No good them worrying about him when there was fuck-all they could do to help, either. Terry vacillated briefly over whether or not to stop for coffee at the El station, but late was one period, and sleep might happen in all of them. Mama didn't approve of his drinking coffee at his age. Mama also didn't approve of his skipping breakfast, but what she didn't see couldn't worry her.

 

"Gee, you're almost as popular as I am."

Terry looked away from his locker to find: Veronica Mars. Again.

"I wonder whose fault that is."

"Yours," Veronica told him pitilessly. "You may not be Вором, but you were still a mite unfaithful."

"Did you want something, or did you just wander over here to insult me?"

"You're cranky; late night last night?"

Terry gave that the unamused glare it asked for.

"When I was down there, it looked like you guys had a pretty heavy line into the Grid. I was wondering if you got a chance, if you would download anything you could find on the police investigation."

"Maybe. You might have noticed, we've got the occasional more imperative matter to deal with."

"If someone's covering something, they want it to stay covered." The bell rang. "Later, McGinnis."

_Unless it was Semyon, who's been shipped off to Kessel_. Knocking up one teenage girl had been what put этого извращенца away. He'd almost killed that one, too.

 

"Ну, сука."

"Что, дрянь?" Terry was a trifle nonplussed to find the Чёртов gang leader trying to corner him. Earwig or Tweedle or something.

"Stay away from Veronica Mars."

"Get out of my face, недомерок." School was over and the hallway was mostly empty; but it was a surprisingly sound tactical judgment on Wheezo's part, because Terry really didn't need to get busted for fighting again.

"You may be connected, pretty boy, but don't push your luck. Now, look at me when I say this: Stay. Away. From Veronica Mars."

"What's it to you?" Terry asked, failing to be intimidated and not shy about showing it.

"She got me out of jail one time. This has an impact on my goodwill." The sarcasm drained off his face like siphoned fuel. "I find you making trouble, I'll have an impact on your face. Are we clear?"

"I wouldn't say subtlety is your strong suit. Are we done here?"

Wodwo looked him up and down in the I-can-break-you-in-half way and dismissed him with a flick of his eyes towards the neon flimsies plastering the hallway. "Yeah. We're done here."

"Pleasure's all mine." Terry smiled acidly, because Bruce was infectious, and waited for Twizzle to leave first. 

 

On second thought, maybe infectious wasn't the word. 

"No sign of Inque since last night," the old man was saying.

"Hey, she's an artificially mutated shape-shifter."

"Which is why you should have captured her when you had the chance."

"What, did you want me to try and swallow her again?" Terry, hovering behind Wayne's chair, set his jaw, and took a breath before the conversation had a chance to deteriorate further. "I'd think you'd be glad to see him again."

"I'm not expecting any visitors," Wayne stonewalled.

Terry rolled his eyes, safely out of sight. "Whatever you say, old-timer."

"Where do you think you're going?"

"To see if Nikolai's heard anything new from out favourite slimeball."

It was a blustery autumn evening, Gotham's orange sun huge and low in the sky, making the air looked faded and dusty. A few dead, greenish leaves skittered between the buildings on the wind. Occasionally, some would get caught up in the impulse vortex created by Terry's hovercycle, swirl madly underneath it, and violently blow away in unpredictable directions. 

Terry had no great hopes for this meeting with Nikolai; they'd probably just end up snarling at one another again until one of them got tired of it and stormed off. But Bruce had been such a 猴子的屁股 lately, and Terry really hoped it wasn't going to continue as long as the circus was in town. 

He parked his cycle around by the side entrance to the restaurant. Discretion was perhaps a lost cause by this point, but Terry was trying to learn good habits.

Nikolai was in the kitchen, chatting quietly with Kirill. Just what his day needed. 

Terry's distaste barely broke his stride. He nicked a still-warm roll from a rack, cracked it open, and slathered on some butter. He took a large bite just before he breached the conversational perimeter so he wouldn't have to talk. Why was everyone he knew so mouthy? It was fucking exhausting, sometimes.

"Look who it is." Kirill's smirk did not reach his eyes. 

Nikolai glanced up with his usual composure. "你好."

Terry leaned back against the counter opposite them and waved his roll in an acknowledging salute. At least Nikolai was eating something.

"Fresh bread tastes better, eh?" Kirill nudged Nikolai, who responded with pleasant, lying smile he used to replace everything from boredom to murderous fury. His eyes crinkled, though, meeting Terry's.

Terry arched an eyebrow and returned his gaze coolly. After about ten seconds, Kirill sighed, picked his knife back up, and started in again on whatever that was half-sliced in front of him. "Just not in my fucking kitchen, okay?"

Terry could read Nikolai's amusement in the widening of his eyes and the completely bogus innocent look on his face. He squinted back unfriendly-like, because now he had this image in his head of Nikolai fucking him up against that counter while Kirill chopped his peppers, and he flat refused to lose his dignity in front of that 渾蛋 and snicker like a twelve-year-old. Besides, if they actually pulled that, Kirill would probably insist on giving stage directions, which was more than Terry was prepared to contemplate. 

Terry slipped away and back out the door, confident that Nikolai would follow. He knew the way well by now, up the stairs and back and back. There were three floors above the restaurant, and more than enough empty rooms; Nikolai had moved into one, not that you could hardly tell.

These little confabulations didn't always involve sex. It was the cover; most of the time, they really did have business to discuss, more or less rationally. The chances of it all winding up in sordid rutting did go to something like seventy per cent when they argued, which probably wasn't healthy; but neither of them was going to try to make the argument that this relationship was healthy. Or, really, much of a relationship.

They had only come to blows once, fairly early on. Nikolai had taken Terry down with only as much bruising as was necessary. Interestingly, he hadn't followed this up by offering to fuck Terry into submission. Just waited for the sense he'd just had knocked back into his head to percolate, let him up, and circumspectly picked up the conversation where it had been interrupted by Terry's right hook.

Terry finished the roll as he climbed the stairs, two at a time, and brushed the crumbs away. It was all dark and ornate and expensive in this place, more lavish than the calculated décor of Wayne Manor. The incongruous smell of good, hearty food cooking chased after them, and Terry had a cautious hope of maybe cadging dinner.

"You feel like talking today?" Nikolai asked when it was safe.

Terry let that pass. "You mentioned a while ago you'd heard something from Powers. There any new developments?"

"Someone sent a message, through someone I know. I believe it was Powers, but there is no proof. Powers is a good businessman; he will not take a risk on me until he is certain of my character. This is no simple contract or merger, after all; in this business, you have your hands around one another's throats."

"If only," Terry said dryly, scuffing his shoe on the carpet because it was still really difficult to think about Powers and not kick something. "And the other thing?"

Nikolai's eyes, when he looked up and caught them, were infuriatingly unreadable. "It is of no concern to Batman."

Which was what he had been saying for two weeks, чёрт. "If you catch a sudden case of dead, my chances of exposing Powers for the pustule he is drop considerably."

"There is nothing you can investigate which I cannot investigate more discreetly."

"More discreetly than invisible?"

"More discreetly than you."

Terry scowled bad-temperedly. "I don't like it."

"Really? I never would have guessed."

Nikolai was leaning backwards with his hands propped on his writing desk, showing very little outward concern about being in the crosshairs. Terry was standing in the middle of the room with his arms folded across his chest. 

"You are such an ass," Terry complained at last.

"Most people, they do not realise this about me. You are perceptive." That was almost a smile, there.

"Flattery will get you nowhere," Terry replied automatically.

"And where would I want to go?"

Nikolai's suit trousers were well-tailored, and he was observably half-hard in them. Terry shook his head, closed the distance, and kissed him. 

Nikolai returned the kiss willingly. It was easy to slip his leg between Nikolai's and press their bodies together. The scrape of Nikolai's teeth on Terry's lower lip was almost hard enough to draw blood. 

Terry's eyes fluttered closed, and he pulled in turn at Nikolai's hips, persuading their swaying forward as Terry himself bore in. Nikolai was more than half-hard now, and he hummed encouragement into Terry's open mouth, apparently content to let him do the work. 

Hy, he could handle that. With slow fingers, Terry slipped mother of pearl buttons through silk buttonholes and reflected, not for the first time, that while Nikolai's suits were very flattering, they had way too many parts. This had sometimes resulted in Nikolai fucking him in full formalwear, when they were both wildly horny, but they seemed not to be headed in that direction tonight. 

Tonight, he couldn't stop kissing Nikolai. It was a strange kiss, starting out almost tender and intensifying without the sense of violent urgency that usually drew them together. When he had jacket and vest and shirt all undone and hanging open like the skins of an onion, Terry slid his hands up beneath Nikolai's undershirt and felt the rise and fall of his ribs instead of going directly for his trousers. 

Nikolai pulled himself upright, 終於, staggering a little as he found his balance again and started to propel them towards his bed. Terry took the opportunity and slid the outer layers off his arms to fall in an expensive mess on the floor. The wifebeater went next, necessitating a break in their pubescent necking.

Terry sparked a grin at him and dropped onto the bed. Nikolai's answering look almost managed to be reproachful, and Terry relented enough to toe off his shoes. 

Nikolai's feet were bare too when he crawled on top of Terry. He leaned down to lick into Terry's mouth again, wet and thoroughly filthy. Terry's hands on Nikolai's shoulders failed to keep him in place, though. Nikolai pulled down the collar of his shirt, one of the long-sleeved ones he'd taken to wearing to conceal his mutating collection of work-related bruises, and bit at the skin thus revealed. 

Terry got a hand into Nikolai's hair, ruining its usual orderly appearance. A judicious application of fingernails and Nikolai sealed his lips and sucked, hard. Terry scratched the back of his neck lightly, and Nikolai pushed up his shirt to bite a nipple. _Господи_. 

Rough fingers popped open Terry's jeans and pushed down the zip, and suddenly there was Nikolai's mouth all over his cock. It was always a surprise, when he did that, but he was so, so good at it. Terry moaned and hung on tighter. 

Nikolai licked over his balls, then came back and swallowed his cock and let Terry thrust down his throat, like he didn't need to breathe like a normal human person. He had one hand on Terry's twitching stomach and the other squeezing his ass. 

Terry was panting with his eyes rolled back in his head when Nikolai came up for air. Nikolai took advantage of his dizzy limpness to rid them both of residual clothing and reached for the lube in the bedside table. 

His mouth came back, which was very nice because it was a thing Terry could do something about without moving. He drew one leg up to give Nikolai and his cold lube better access; the chill brought him back down a little, to the point where he could run a hand up Nikolai's front and rub a thumb over his nipple. Terry's other hand was clamped on the back of his neck, holding his head in place. 

Nikolai's fingers were playing with his hair as well as his ass, sending a weird but good mix of signals down his nerves. Terry pinched the nipple he was fiddling with impatiently, and Nikolai grunted into his mouth. He crooked his fingers, and it was Terry's turn to make involuntary noises. 

The stretch and heat of Nikolai's cock sinking into him was by now familiar. Both Terry's legs were bent, braced flat-footed on the bed, by the time he was all the way inside. His hips pushed up as Nikolai's snapped down, and their rhythm built itself from there. 

They were a tangle of limbs, braced against the headboard and each other; still trying to be connected at the mouth. Nikolai's rhythm was smooth but driving, and 天啊, there was Nikolai's hand on his cock. 

Nikolai's expression turned more and more concentrated the closer he got. Terry watched his brow furrow as the hand he had spread on Nikolai's back picked up the fine trembling of the muscles there that went with harder, more erratic thrusts. He had an odd, sudden wish to smudge that furrow away with his thumb; but Nikolai's mouth was hovering over his again, almost like asking, and all he could do was to try and kiss it gone.

Terry came, gasping, a few seconds later. Nikolai's come-smeared hand closed over his on the headboard, helping him hold himself up to meet Nikolai's continuing thrusts. He buried his face in Terry's neck when, with a final heave, he sank himself as deeply as possible and let go. His other hand was still in Terry's hair.

They collapsed almost immediately, not quite as awkward as it might have been if their muscles had been at all capable of maintaining any tension. At all. Terry closed his eyes again and just breathed. 

Nikolai rolled off with a groan and sprawled on the bed. This was not the master bedroom, but the bed was at least large enough to accommodate both of them in a horizontal arrangement. Terry flipped onto his stomach, pillowing his head on his arms and observing Nikolai in profile. He'd half expected a cot, the first time he'd been in here, Nikolai's tastes being what they were. Spend enough years in prison, after all...

He looked tired, and Terry scowled a little, privately, at the man's stubbornness in keeping all his problems to himself. Stupid, closed-mouthed сволочь. Why couldn't he just—

Terry's stomach chose that moment to growl, and the moment was broken. Nikolai made no effort to hide his amusement. Terry thumped a pillow over his smirking face and got up.

 

"餵," an increasingly familiar voice said in Terry's ear, and he began to regret having his set hand-held to forward his calls to the Batsuit.

"I'm kind of busy, here," he said, which was a lie. Bruce wanted him patrolling around the LuthorCorp complex in case Inque came back—they still didn't know what she'd been after—but there had been no oil-slick trace of her since he'd zapped her with their latest shock circuitry upgrade. Terry was stretching his pattern to hover over South Ferry, where Nikolai had a meet tonight. Despite all this potential for action and mayhem, it was a disgustingly quiet night.

"Nice Batman voice."

"What do you want?" Terry snapped irritably.

"To find out what Duncan Kane's soccer uniform was doing in the dryer the night of his sister's attack," Veronica answered brightly. "Or maybe my own moon."

"Wait, what?"

"I finagled my way into that safety deposit box. Mama was working on a story about Lilly Kane, and Da was helping her. He was the first one on the scene, and according to the notes, he heard the dryer buzz while he was taking statements."

Terry frowned. "Why would someone that filthy rich be doing his own laundry?"

"A question none of the Kanes was able to answer satisfactorily." Veronica's tone was something between smug and predatory.

"That why your da went after Jake Kane like he did?"

"Well, they were obviously hiding something. Not that Duncan was capable of saying much." her voice went tight. "I was with Da when he got the call. Duncan was just sitting out front; I swear, he didn't even recognise _me_. He was literally catatonic."

"Interesting." Terry flipped the Batmobile upside-down just to be doing something different. "Your friend Wheelo gave me a talking-to the other day."

"Who?"

"You know; short guy, no hair, 'cycle gang."

" _Weevil_ , T."

"You got him out of jail? And you give me crap about, well."

"He was _innocent_ , T."

"We really shouldn't be seen together anyway. Besides not expending energy on conversations like that one, certain people might start asking questions."

"Hy, fine; I'll take down that picture of you I have framed in my locker, right below the O Boyz poster."

"Серьёзно. These are dangerous people."

"真的啊? Because I thought those pictures of my face in a gun sight were just a really maladjusted love note," Veronica snapped. 

"Well, you ought to appreciate what I'm saying, then," Terry pressed. "Look—"

"I hate to interrupt," Wayne's voice cut in, dry in the way that meant he'd been listening in and was far too amused by their bickering, "but there's been a break-in at the LuthorCorp complex. You'll have to hurry if you want to get there in time," and his tone there was a lot more edged. 

Terry winced as he flipped the Batmobile back over. "On my way."

Veronica's line went dead, but the light on his HUD signalling Bruce's continuing presence more or less inside his head remained. 

"Inque again?" Terry asked, prepared to resign himself to a week of Bruce's under-demonstrative I-told-you-so-ing.

"No; it's someone new. The police are in pursuit, merging onto the Gotham Bay Highway heading northbound."

 

"You should've asked her what else she found," Bruce greeted him when he finally dragged back to the cave after an exciting night of being punched in the face, electrocuted, and rubber-cemented to a wall. 

Terry blinked. Then he scowled. "You really think that's the last we're going to hear from her?"

"Not if she's anything like her grandmother. But keep me apprised of her investigation; I don't like murderers running loose in my city."

"Neither do I; but don't we have a thief to catch?" 

By the narrowing of his eyes, Wayne marked this incredibly subtle redirection of their conversation; but he swivelled back to the console, fingers already dancing. Terry pulled off the cowl and stepped up behind him.

"You check the police report; it sounded as though they were actually going to file one, this time." 

Terry grimaced; LuthorCorp were collectively a bunch of seriously closedmouthed and uncooperative bastards: there was never any telling what all might be there, or not there, at any given moment when they didn't bother filing the damned police reports. LuthorCorp was an Alliance-based intragalactic company that focussed on large-scale, expensive technology, like terraforming equipment, weather satellites (which Gotham still did not possess), space ships, and weapons on a scale to be mounted on or shoot at them. The complex in Gotham City did storage and shipping as well as research; it was a grab bag, was what it was.

"And you will be...?" Terry regarded the images forming on the holo screen above Bruce with interest.

"There's something else that's just come down. A vigilante incident, the third in four months."

"Nothing I'm going to get blamed for, is it?"

That won a brief, crooked smile. "No, but we may have to clean it up if it goes any further. The incidents may not even be connected at all."

Terry snorted. "And Reavers ate my homework. I'll believe it when I see it."

 

Terry was right about Veronica not being put off, no matter how much he growled at her. He had to admit, she was keeping almost as busy as he was, chasing around the guy ripped off LuthorCorp (couldn't have happened to nicer people) who the press was calling, with a fair amount of accuracy, the Human Armoury. It wasn't just LuthorCorp now, though; Terry'd missed him narrowly at Wayne-Powers and stopped him cold at Fox Techa. They were getting a sort of picture of what this guy might be up to, and Terry had a nasty sort of hunch about the bigger picture, too. Time to go on the offensive, in a manner of speaking.

"喂," Terry answered resignedly when the call came in. He'd given in yesterday and programmed a distinct calltone to Veronica's number. "Shouldn't you be making out with your boyfriend?"

"I'm sorry, did I interrupt something?"

Terry scowled into his binoculars. He was perched on his idling hovercycle in his street clothes, watching his—well, he used to be a friend—Jared Tate's house with a twisted feeling in his gut. "Nothing pleasant." 

Jared's step-father's house was at least far enough into the South Bay side of Balboa Island that vampires were unlikely. Drusilla had been quiet for a couple of months, and it was starting to make Terry nervous. 

"Haven't bagged your techno-thief yet, huh?"

"You bagged your murderer?" Terry deflected pointedly.

An aggrieved sigh came through his earpiece, paired to his hand-held so he could keep both hands for steering. "There are plenty of details; they're just not _leading_ me куда-нибудь. Koontz has cancer, which means any pay off's going to be a bitch to track. Weevil's Waves are incriminating, but he has an alibi and no way he has either the resources or the mental convolution necessary to find a dying man and bribe him. Хуй. I need to get back into that safe."

"Koontz parted from Kane's company under less than good terms, didn't he?" Terry asked. Dusk was falling, the street lights blinking on. "Why would he help the Kanes with the cover-up?"

"I'll ask him," Veronica replied airily. "I'm sure he'll talk to me when he's insisted on lying through his teeth to the entire judicial system."

"Now, why didn't I think of that?" Terry rubbed the bridge of his nose, then raised the binoculars again. "Hey, you know anything about a kid at school named Jared Tate?"

"He's in your grade, right? No, not really. Почему? 他是你的朋友嗎?"

"He used to be. His Mama got remarried last year. Guy just got laid off; Wayne-Powers, light weapons expert. И сейчас кто-то's running around with an arsenal could stand off a whole squad of Alliance marshals, ripping off sensitive weapons labs."

"Well, that doesn't sound suspicious at all," Veronica reassured him. "Which is why you're staking out his house right now."

"..."

"I'm right, aren't I?"

Movement down there. "I have to go."

"好吧, but the next time we do this girl-talk thing, do you think you could french braid my hair?"

"Пока."

Terry pocketed the binoculars and put his hovercycle in gear. There was a big, grey van pulling out of the Tates' garage and heading in the direction of Pell Bridge. 

 

One thing about Nikolai was that he was a lot less time-demanding than Dana had been. The fact that a substantial portion of their interactions were on-the-job, as it were, notwithstanding, this left Terry with almost enough time to complete his homework and study for the final round of CATs they squeezed in before college applications went out. Not enough to do anything ridiculous like sleep or anything, but he hadn't actually flunked a test in two weeks, which was some kind of progress. 

Bruce, of all people, had just started prodding him about college applications. Что же это? Mama was bad enough; and, anyway, they weren't due for one, two months yet. 

Terry told himself this for the fiftieth time as he swatted away another reminder on his tablet—unsurprisingly, Bruce had no respect for personal boundaries; other peoples', anyway—and tried to focus on his chemistry lab report, which was due next period, and not the inside of his eyelids. Or stare at Dana across the room. Чёрт, he was such a sleeze. Dana had been so right to dump him. He'd deserved her stomping all over him with those combat boots.

She and Chelsea and Blade sat in their usual girl-gaggle across the room. Usually, they made a point of keeping their backs to him, which he made as easy as possible by staking out a desk in the back corner of the room. Terry wondered if this was anything like how Veronica had spent the past year. Well, he thought Veronica had less cringing guilt about her situation, but _he_ wasn't trying to prove anything.

Veronica Mars was still a problem. Terry had refrained from actively investigating the Lilly Kane thing, not that he had the free time to blow on it, because here was one girl who did not need the encouragement. He'd been hearing a little less from her since she hooked up with that new Aught-Niner kid; it worked out right, maybe she'd fold right back into her old crowd, let it lie. Sure.

That night, he spent some time out early patrolling, and again at the end of the night, but mostly he and Bruce were bent over the flimsy he'd wheedled out of Belker this afternoon, evidence from the latest vigilante incident. To be returned by dawn, he'd emphasised, growling.

It wasn't a cheap flimsy, just imprinted and turned out. There was complex coding going on inside the bright red elctro-plastic, moving blocks of text and images fading in and out. Not just fully programmed, but interactive. Strings of what Bruce's examination indicated might in fact be accurate representations of viral RNA crawled around what was a quite frankly sickening description of symptomology, from internal bleeding to liquefied brains and...everything else. Terry tried not to look to closely at the images. About halfway through the night, they poked something that triggered holographic projections.

"Боже мы. I think they're worse than the crime scene scans." Terry swallowed bile, suddenly not worried about missing breakfast. 

"Someone's adjusted the saturation; cropping, filters. There's a macabre sort of artistry here," Bruce observed, his voice flat and his manner as cold and unperturbed as ever. 

Terry felt like all his hair was standing on end. He very suddenly wanted to be ten systems away. "I think I'm gonna be sick."

"Later," Bruce told him absently. "This is clinical, methodical; but also personal. Look at all the details here: not just the narrative and evidence, but the original victim's family. He doesn't just extract the confession; he recreates the terror."

"His records all erased themselves off the lab's computers, according to Belker, not to mention the job he did programming this, and on not much notice." The flimsy had been found pinned to the glass doors of the lab's decon chamber, where Garber 醫生的...remains had been found this morning. "A programmer _and_ a virologist?"

"И врачом, и лётчиком, и 律師, if the same individual is responsible for the other incidents that've been cropping up." 

"What's next, dewie raider?" 

Wayne let that slide. "Whether it is or not, whoever this is is responsible for the murder of one man."

"Even if he was an отталкивающий тип."

"The evidence would have been enough to prompt an investigation, at the least. Garber would have been brought to justice." It was only when he looked up that he saw how furious Wayne was. All those decades of practice; it was a scary thing to watch. His anger didn't leak into his expression or movements; it bled off into the air around him. This was the line Batman had refused to cross. When dealing with violent criminals, people sometimes ended up dead. But Batman brought the crooks _to_ the law; he didn't usurp its place. "Whoever this is, I want him off my streets."

"No argument there. Why don't I stop by the previous crime scenes tomorrow night, now we have a calling card? See if I can't turn up something we missed before."

"好. 來吧; we're burning nighttime."

 

"What the 地獄 tried to eat you?"

Terry glared up from his really unappetising school lunch; the loss of order-in privileges was almost enough to send him crawling back to the wrestling team, Nelson or no. "I thought we covered this." 

Veronica set down her tray and slid onto the bench across from him. "You look harassed, I'll look pissed off; people will think I'm bugging you for a case. Actually, you wouldn't know why Casey Gant's joined a cult, would you?"

"Uh, no?" Terry scowled, only partly for verisimilitude. "Where's your boyfriend?" 

"Over on the _cool_ side of the cafeteria. I lose my appetite when all that emotional baggage comes up." Veronica was inspecting his face with a weirdly intent expression. "Are you wearing cover-up?"

Terry shifted self-consciously in his seat. "I ran into some trouble last night."

"Какой труд? In your after-school job? Or is your boyfriend knocking you around?"

"Trust me, you don't want to know." Vampires, actually, on his way between the old vigilante sites. Terry felt his mouth twisting into a grimace while she blithely chewed a forkful of tofu. Well, the encroaching winter weather had forced them all inside at last this week, and there were only so many tables. "Why don't we talk about something less gloomy? Anything new on your Lilly Kane investigation?"

Veronica looked at him askance, though the effect was somewhat spoiled by the bean noodles she was still slurping. She swallowed. "You call that less gloomy?"

"After the last two days, a nice, straightforward framing and assault is almost a relief." 

Veronica shook her head. "It's 一向 getting less straightforward. The Kane case has been all over the news this month; and when I went back into my parents' safe, I noticed something. When the anonymous tip came in on Abel Koontz, Sheriff Lamb's boy scouts found a pair of Lilly's shoes on his gravhouseboat. The holos are all over the Grid. Except," Veronica leaned forward, tapping one finger on the table; Terry remembered to chew the chunk of tofu in his mouth, "The crime scene holos of Lilly Kane's room show the same pair of shoes there. _After_ the attack."

"Well, it would be."

Veronica was unamused. Terry drank his unidentifiable juice.

"Anything else in the file?" he relented at last.

"I don't know; when I went back in yesterday, they'd changed the combination."

"You think they—?"

"Yeah." Veronica was just pushing her food around now. Terry still didn't have much of an appetite.

"What makes you so sure?"

"I confessed," Veronica admitted, making some serious eye contact with her lunch tray. "Spilled my guts all over the living room floor. Just the Lilly Kane stuff," she added hastily, heading off his alarmed expression.

"Ouch. How'd that go?" 

A balancing gesture with her fork hand. "They were a little upset, but I distracted them with the new evidence. It's usable proof, I guess, but it doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know: someone framed Abel Koontz."

"Someone with access to the Kane mansion."

"Anybody could've broken in," Veronica pointed out, mostly, he thought, to be contrary. She flicked irritably at the remains of her noodles. "Jake Kane ещё won't fess up. When Mama threw out my pictures, took us off tailing Kane— _she_ was the one meeting him. Trying to squeeze out some more information on the blackmail or the cover-up or whatever."

"Well, now that you're all on the same page, maybe you can let them do some investigating, 可能嗎?"

Veronica's answering look spoke volumes. "Yuk it up, funny man; but I'm not the one in bed with organised crime. Literally."

Oh, now that was pushing it. "Откуда это?"

"It didn't come from anywhere. It's just that your telling me not to get involved seems a little hypocritical," Veronica returned acidly.

" _I_ know what I'm doing," Terry practically hissed, glancing around to make sure no one was in earshot.

"With the head Воров? Yeah, I'm sure you do. But do you know то, что он делает? Is that what you're doing; spying on him?" Veronica's eyes were accusing, but at least she kept her voice low.

"I can't even _begin_ to tell you how much that is not your business."

"Crimes like that are _everyone's_ business. Or isn't that your battle-cry?"

Terry clenched his jaw and unclenched his fists. "我這時真没必要這個."

Veronica rolled her eyes, just as the bell rang. Terry stood up and raised his voice for anyone like Veronica's self-declared biker-protector who might be listening.

"好運 with Casey Gant; but take my advice: stay away from the cultists and the rest of us whack-jobs."

Well, at least no one would mistake _that_ for getting too chummy. Хуй. Maybe giving up on women had been a happier accident than he'd first thought. _Чёрт и сволочь._

It was a Friday, and it had taken Terry a disjointed moment to add up all the flimsies papering the hallways and the streamers adorning the gym like so much multi-coloured flaming shrapnel of a cheerleader's exploded soul and get _Homecoming dance_. It seemed to be a little late this year. He rubbed his eyes and tried to focus again; sleep deprivation was making him both macabre and punchy. 

But at last the day was over, and as much fun as he'd occasionally had at dances, this particular one would be hell in any circumstances in which he found himself attending. Hopefully, the 'verse would resist the urge to further 把 his life 搞糟, and all he'd have to deal with would be murderers, rapists, genetically altered thieves, vampires, and homicidal vigilantes. Teenagers, you weren't supposed to hit.

No breakthroughs on the big cases this week, either. Nothing substantial since the happy day he'd nailed Jared Tate's step-da for stealing things to build illegal weapons for arms dealers. They'd copied the vigilante evidence flimsy as well as they were able before returning it to Belker. The other sites had come up dry. 

Terry had been debating asking Veronica if she could get the police files from all the suspicious incidents from her grandmother when that little scene had gone down. Telling her the truth about Nikolai would have quieted her down, at least temporarily; but he wasn't about to risk his only lead on the man who'd killed his father on a factor he couldn't control. Veronica Mars hadn't agreed to play by their rules, and Terry didn't trust her as far as she could throw Mad Stan.

"We could really use a line into the police database right now," Terry grumbled on his way back to the cave at the tag end of a long night. Friday night patrol was always pretty dirty.

"Tell me about it. Gilmore changed the passcodes again; I'm still working on cracking them. We should have access in another day or two. In the meantime, don't you have a resource with some access?"

"Veronica's got a bug up her 屁股 about something." Terry hit the door open control.

There was a smile in Bruce's voice when he responded. "I know. She left something for you."

Terry landed and hopped out, wary. "What is it?"

Wayne held out a file folder thick with plastic flimsies. "Looks like the criminal file of one Nikolai Luzhin."

"Чёрт возьми," Terry groaned. He pushed back the cowl, accepting the folder with his free hand, flipping through it. "Looks pretty complete."

"What are you going to do with it?"

Terry smiled grimly. "Oh, I have a few ideas. You got anything urgent for me?"

Bruce was eyeing him appraisingly. "Not at the moment. You awake enough to stay on the 'cycle?"

"Probably." This assertion was thankfully not interrupted by a yawn. "I just need a few minutes with the mainframe."

"Don't forget to turn off the lights." 

Ace, a big black shadow by Wayne's chair, bared his fangs, stretched and trotted upstairs behind his master. Terry leaned over Wayne's vacated chair and tapped a few controls, then started stripping out of the suit. He showered while the file was printing.

 

Terry waited until until Monday after school to contact Veronica, just on the off-chance it'd make her sweat. The rendez-vous he gave her was another little café, in the neutral territory of Andrews Heights. Terry didn't bother trying to get there first; he wasn't planning on staying long. 

"Terry," Veronica said levelly. She was tucked back in a booth screened from the large storefront windows by something plant-like and alarmingly orange.

Terry dropped a sealed file on the trendy little coffee-house table. "That's your boyfriend; Troy Vandergraff. Take a look. I don't know what you thought you were doing butting into my personal life—"

Terry paused, but Veronica didn't say anything, just kept drilling him with almost the exact same laser-eyes Gilmore gave him. "Turnabout's fair play, Veronica. Read it, don't read it—just don't think this is a game."

And with that, he turned on his heel and left, passing as fast as he could the clutter of tables and out into the chilling afternoon air.

 

**Interlude (Jarod)**

_Cree claw, toad's foot. Geese walk barefoot._

A tall, dark man sat in the middle of a large, dimly lit basement room, racing a toy hovercycle around and around. There were the sticks and the strings from six eaten Ice Planets scattered in front of him on the concrete. Otherwise, the floor was almost bare. The hovercycle and its small, adjustable rider dodged through them.

The man, who had been told his name was Jarod, hummed to himself, attention fixed on the toy in an intense sort of enjoyment. No one was around to hear him, but that was all right; he'd spent most of his like alone, in a comfortable room, with access to incredible amounts of carefully controlled information.

Hour after hour, he ran the 'cycle from one end of the room to the other, looping around the thin wood sticks in their odd little groupings. An observer looking down from the ceiling would see they were arranged to form the characters for two numbers: 十:十九.

_Cree claw, toad's foot. Geese walk barefoot._

His caretakers had never let him handle a loaded gun, but he knew by heart the physics of pistol, bullet, impact. All he had to learn was the kick against his arm and the smell of powder burning.

There was no one to care about gunshots in this part of town, even if a body passed by close enough to hear. There was no landlord to complain of damage to the walls. 

There was no justice in this place, except by accident. There were fathers who lost their sons and children who lost their lives. In this place, there was only the façade of justice.

_Cree claw, toad's foot. Geese walk barefoot._

Red hair and a child's rhyme. He closed his eyes and took a shot, like he could shoot his sorrow through the heart. It went where he sent it, but there was no substantial target. The bullet was sped, but not its purpose.

The voices of his caretakers, the men who had moulded a child until his mind functioned like a supercomputer, whispered in his ears, and he drew on the one memory that couldn't be them to drown it out. One memory, and a certainty he had carried in his heart for years.

_Cree claw, toad' foot. Geese walk barefoot._

_I decide who lives or dies._

He cocked the gun again.

 

**Part Three (Veronica)**

Veronica didn't cry until she got home that night. It had slotted into place all too neatly, once she had all the information: the Матрёшка doll, smuggling precision crystals; the aircar gone missing from the spaceport parking garage.

She couldn't think why she'd assumed there was nothing telling in his past. People let you down. Troy was a flash-fried thief, and the first boy she'd let anywhere near her heart for a year. The great avenger Batman was off rutting with a slave-trading murderer. Even her parents had lied to her; _protect_ her, sure. Veronica felt all kinds of protected.

There was a half-empty box of pizza on the floor next to Veronica, because righteous triumph and the sense of vindication that came with mailing the illicit crystals to her grandmamma's office and letting Troy run away with a pair of audio chips programmed to blast the latest Ditto Boys song only went so far. She was sitting next to it with her room pulled down in a mess of constructive disorder, de-Troy-ifying it.

It wasn't hardly a job at all; such a short relationship, to engender so much angst. But it was an important part of her wallowing process. Next step would be ice cream, brought to her by—

"Хорошо, милый?" Da asked from the door.

"Yeah; I'll be okay." Veronica sniffed, accepted the ice cream. "Mint chocolate chip. You know me well."

Picking his way across the debris, Da settled on the floor beside her with a grunt and squeezed her shoulders in a one-armed hug. "You wanna tell me about it?"

"Troy and I...broke up," she admitted softly, mushing her ice cream around in the bowl.

"Мне так жаль, 親愛的."

Veronica felt him press a kiss into her hair, although she was primarily maintaining eye contact with a couple of chocolate chips. Almost mechanically, she raised the spoon to her lips.

"Ah; you got here first, I see." Mama stopped at the door, took in the pizza, the ice cream, and half the contents of Veronica's room spread out across the floor, and seemed to be unable to quite set her face as sympathy and horror both kept being routed by amusement. "Sometimes, you remind me 太太多了 of my mother."

"They broke up," Da said, pretty redundantly.

"Would that have anything to do with the Wave I just got from Lorelai saying Troy'd been picked up in the spaceport for disturbing the peace?"

"可能," Veronica drawled around a mouthful of ice cream.

Mama stumbled across the minefield and plopped down with them, leaning back against Da. She reached across Veronica to snag a slice of pizza. 

"Hey," she protested weakly. "Mine!"

"Mm." Mama took an unrepentantly large bite of fourteen-topping pizza. "你想 wallow alone, or are you up for a movie? We can put on _Sunrise Over Shadow_ or _Eudica Crie_ s and embarrass Da by sobbing over all the sad scenes."

The ice cream was starting to do its job. Veronica leaned her head on Da's shoulder, feeling sad and tired and stupidly, childishly grateful for her parents to lean on. "Movie, пожалуйста?" 

"You got it." Mama stretched to kiss her forehead. While she was over here anyway, she snagged another slice. "And bring the pizza, okay?"

Almost smiling despite himself, Veronica slumped to her feet, gathering the pizza box, and trailed out after.

She slept fitfully that night, dreams full of whispers, and she woke with the memory of lips on hers, although she couldn't remember whose.

 

The wallowing helped, but Veronica was still pretty much Waving it in at school the next day. It was lunchtime before she realised that no, it wasn't just misery-induced headache or a post-break-up abnormally high level of misanthropy; the whole school really was five decibels louder today. What the hell was going on?

"Did I miss something?" Veronica asked Weevil, her other resources at Hill High being more or less non-existent.

"Some sex quiz or something. Got sent to everybody's Wave Pool." He made a watery sort of hand gesture.

"От кого?" 

Weevil shrugged. "Why, you jealous somebody else is rocking the boat?"

Veronica smiled her sweetest, most passive-aggressive smile back at him. "Thanks, Weevil. You've been a big help."

"My pleasure."

And he swaggered off, and Veronica abandoned her lunch tray for her DSB. Well, forthcoming as he'd been, Weevil hadn't been lying. There was a Wave in her Pool, alright; unknown sender, but it hadn't been filtered as spam. Oh, well; just another high school fad. Veronica hit _刪除_ and went to class.

 

"What in the 'verse was _that?_ " Mama asked, poking her head around the door to her inner office. She was dressed casually for some around-town work on a case, brown hair braided back from her face, and her expression as she regarded her daughter was concerned.

Veronica lowered her hands from her mouth sheepishly. She was afraid her attempt at a bright smile fell a few watts short. 

Mama shook her head and wandered over, looking at the little CGI figures hopping around the holo display of Veronica's DSB. "That doesn't look like an invoice."

"Ha, ha," Veronica said, although she supposed she had ought to explain the malicious yawping. "Someone's sending this around at school. This is the second Wave; the first was a purity test."

"In my day, we passed these around on plastic flimsies." Mama was grinning at her sideways. "So, what did you get?" 

Veronica rolled her eyes. "I didn't _take_ it. Which turns out to be a good idea: 看看. You can now _buy_ anyone's score." The Grid was a beautiful, beautiful thing. "I can't believe the words are coming out of my mouth, but I kinda can't wait for school tomorrow."

"Well, at least I know what to do next time you need веселиться. I think the technical term for this disorder you have is sadism."

"Schadenfreude," Veronica corrected. 

"Sophistry." 

"Mm." Veronica closed it out and pulled up the next case file in need of invoicing.

"Good girl." Mama dropped a kiss on her head and disappeared back into her office.

 

School was glorious chaos in the morning. Veronica almost swallowed her tongue when she saw Terry glancing around at the variously whooping, shouting, crying, and cat-fighting student body of Hill High, the numbers paint-sticked all over lockers, and her. 

Catching her watching, he raised an editorial eyebrow. Veronica returned him a quickly summoned flat look and a shrug; he had to be the only student at Hill High with no idea what was going on. Well, she already knew he didn't check his Waves.

More arresting to Veronica was the tableau halfway to her locker between tall, blonde, head-cheerleader, honours-student Meg Manning and her hulking boyfriend Cole. Meg was scrubbing a bright red numeral off her locker—forty-something; now, that didn't seem right. 

As she watched, Dana Tan turned around and snapped something at Cole. Veronica wished she was close enough to hear it, because by the look of things, she was tearing him a new one. Dana was a senior; not an Aught-Niner, but one of the infamous Chelsea Cunningham's circle via the swim team. Veronica and Dana had used to sit back and watch Chelsea and Lilly square off for the title of most spoiled, rebellious rich girl. It had been pretty good dinner-theatre. Well, lunch theatre. 

In any case, a girl who could stomp Terry McGinnis flat in less than a minute was more than a match for Cole, who did in fact appear to be leaving now. Shaking herself out of her...fascination, Veronica continued the odyssey to her locker.

But Dana had spotted her and was already waving her over. With deep reluctance, Veronica crossed the hall instead of fleeing.

"怎麼樣?"

Meg was definitely upset. She glanced back and forth between Veronica and Dana, still trying to control her breathing.

Dana took the lead, brushing dark hair back from her dark eyes. "You're good at tracking stuff down, aren't you?"

"I've picked up a few things," Veronica admitted cautiously. "That looked pretty ugly."

"Somebody must have posted it for me," Meg said. "The Purity Test. I didn't even _do_ anything!"

"I believe you," Veronica reassured her. 

"You'll help, then?" Dana asked. Meg looked cautiously hopeful. 

"I'll nail которого бы ни to the wall for you."

"Veronica—"

"Meg," Veronica interrupted her, "you're the last nice person at this school. I would believe guardian dragons burned your toast this morning."

"Veronica!" Meg flicked a glance at Dana, shocked.

" _She's_ not nice."

Veronica and Dana traded edged smiles.

"是啊," Dana agreed.

Meg looked from one to the other of them and groaned. "Whoever did this, I want them _found_ , not skinned, you two."

"Конечно," Veronica agreed easily. 

 

A quick review of the Purity Test site during her period of Office Aide (otherwise known as snooping time) told her that whoever had posted that test for Meg, had had to have had her school passcode. Which made her next step the DSB lab. And, although Sangreal 小姐 was probably the best source on programming and the Grid available, Veronica didn't think she'd be up for helping hack the school passcode system. So option two.

"Sangreal 小姐, who's your best student?" Shorter was generally best when dealing with this particular teacher.

Sangreal didn't look up from her holo-screen. "Cynthia Mackenzie. Parking lot. Blue hair. Let her know that if she's not back in five minutes, she's got detention."

"Sure thing." Veronica popped back out. Blue hair, parking lot. Right.

Parking lot, thumping and cursing, more like. This was not an unusual state for the parking lot, home as it was to both the Чёртов hovercycle gang and belligerently rich teenage boys. Still, Veronica took a chance.

Ah. _Here we are._ Blue hair, and a car almost as crappy as her own. Cynthia Mackenzie had apparently locked herself out of her car. _Perfect._

"Cynthia?"

The thumping stopped. "Mac. Please." Mac kicked the car door again with her sensible shoes. "And if Sangreal 小姐 sent you, you can tell her I'll be back just as soon as I get the disc out of this 狗屎的 aircar."

"Have you ever seen the movie 收回人, Mac?"

"没."

Veronica ruthlessly stripped the grip from a sheaf of flimsy hand-outs and started jimmying the door. "Just call me 奥托."

Veronica knew she had her when the lock popped.

 

Mac sent her to the IT guy. Veronica hadn't known they had an IT guy other than Miss Sangreal, but it made sense, the amount of tech was in the school. He was 很漂亮 , but otherwise a dead end. 

And that was the first day. 

Veronica hadn't heard from Terry since Monday. Of course, she was the one who usually did the calling.

And where did she stand with the Bats these days? McGinnis was obviously keeping tabs on her investigation of Lilly's attacker, but it wasn't like he was contributing. 

So, what was she supposed to have learned from that little game with Troy's police record? Not to go nosing around where Terry didn't think she belonged? He couldn't be that dim.

Well, irrational bitterness aside, the message was probably more like, _Make sure you know what you're talking about before you go shooting your mouth off._ Her oh-so-subtle plan to find out had backfired spectacularly, and for some reason, she was less than enthusiastic about the direct option, i.e. stalking Nikolai again. 

Maybe she needed to shelve this for a while, as much as it bugged her. Until she'd wormed her way further into Terry and Bruce's little conspiracy. Which would require talking to Terry. Not high on her list right now. 

Thankfully, she had other cases on her desk. Meg's, she'd deal with tomorrow. Tonight, she and Mama had some more planning to do for Da's birthday surprise. Which was also tomorrow. Why were so many people born in October?

"Who's your daddy?" 

Veronica made a face. "I hate it when you say that."

Mama bounced into the apartment, undeterred. "Any more talk like that, and I won't let you sign the card, and you will get no credit for the awesomeness that is this present."

"You got the tickets?" Veronica absolutely did not squeal.

"Three tickets, Music from Some Guys in Space, Saturday night. If you don't play nice, I'm sure Lorelai's interested."

Veronica paced indignantly across the kitchen, brandishing the product of her labours. "After I've spent all this time slaving over a hot stove?"

Mama put her head on one side, gesturing illustratively. "Have you ever noticed how everything you make just...tends to lean a little to the left?"

"I do that on purpose," Veronica told her airily, setting the cake (chocolate, with chocolate frosting) back on the counter.

"Mm-hm." Mama made a pass at the frosting. Veronica batted her hand away, unsuccessfully. "Not as bad as Lorelai though. All I'm gonna say is, it's a good thing she found a man who could cook after I left the house."

She gave Veronica a pleading look. Veronica sighed, rolled her eyes, and stuck two spoons in the leftover frosting.

"How did you two not starve?"

"Delivery. Lorelai was not allowed near the oven; she actually set the place on fire, once, you know."

"So I've heard tell." Veronica scooped out a generous lump of frosting and sucked until all she could taste was metallic spoon. 

"She forgot to take the shoes out. I think Luke was half feeding us even before he married Grandmamma," Mama agreed, licking chocolaty smudges from her lips. "Did you make this? 這是真的不諧."

"Mm," Veronica agreed, satisfied.

 

School the next day only firmed Veronica's resolve to catch whatever 渾蛋 posted that test for Meg. You had to be some sort of scum to attack her in the first place, even without her youngest sister had disappeared last year in that mass kidnapping fiasco, almost certainly gone forever now. 

It was enough to mess anybody around, which was another reason to suspect Meg's other sister, Lizzie. Lizzie might have had Meg's purportedly uncrackable passcode, and she subscribed to the feed that had originally posted this version of the Purity Test. If her parents weren't taking the loss well, they might be putting even more pressure on rebellious Lizzie, as opposed to the preternaturally sincere and well-behaved Meg.

Lizzie denied it, big surprise, and she was the day's only lead. Other than the large number fourteen scrawled in glaring neon on Veronica's own locker, which had _nothing_ to do with her continued interest in solving this case. 

That was one in Lizzie's favour, though: whoever it was had to have cracked Veronica's passcode, because she had definitely not given it to Lizzie. And the verbal kick in the teeth Lizzie had delivered to Cole at lunch that day hadn't sounded like guilt bubbling to the surface. Which widened the pool back to all the jackasses at Hill High.

In the meanwhile, Veronica had been following Terry's nightly adventures via the vidnews. Nothing exceptional this week, but there was what was becoming a tri-monthly surge of prurient Batman-interest in the news. Terry'd complained about news crews getting in the way— _civilians_ , he'd complained on more than one occasion. 

Lorelai 外婆 said much the same, despite her daughter's chosen vocation. Veronica, who'd grown up almost as much in the _Gotham Gazette_ 's office as Mama had in the Midtown Precinct House, had a slightly different view on that. 

Veronica wondered if Mama knew that Grandmamma had been Batgirl. What Mama would do with that information, if Veronica told her. She was sixty per cent sure Da would turn the whole lot in, reward or no reward; he was still pretty Sheriff-y in some respects. If Grandmamma wasn't involved, there wouldn't hardly be a question.

It was thoughts like this held her back from telling her parents. Well, no and yes. It wasn't so much that keeping the secret felt _wrong_ ; what was hard was the same thing had been hard in not telling about—well, the night of Shelly Pomroy's End of the Year party. Mama had learned parenting from her own mother, which had left her with a large number of boundary issues where her offspring was concerned. 

Veronica missed their help working through things. This past year especially, they'd all curled in on one another in a protective familial knot, trying to let the blows of public opinion slide off. If she came all the way clean with them, it wouldn't be the end of the world; but the consequences would ripple out into the rest of the world. It would also take them a flat ten seconds to peg her secret ambitions.

Gathered in the living room, watching her Da blow out the candles then start hacking out chunks of moist, dark cake, it didn't help Veronica to think that the walls coming up between them were the ones she'd put there. 

"Music from Some Guys in Space, three tickets, _eighth row_ ," Da was crowing as presents were juggled around cake and ice cream.

"Courtesy of Lane's contacts in the music biz," Mama reported, self-satisfied and glowing.

"Where is she now, anyway?" 

"According to her last communiqué, someplace between Antares and Lansmere. Closer to Lansmere than Antares. She didn't seem quite sure."

"Well, I'm sure she'll make it back safely one of these years." 

Da leaned over to press a kiss on Mama that would probably have been more serious if he hadn't been grinning so wide. Veronica hid her face and made disgusted noises, as was expected, and caught a wickedly amused look from Lorelai外婆 and a sympathetic one from Gran'da Luke. 

Luke was probably the only one of the lot of them who didn't ask a lot of questions. They were really an unbearably nosy lot. But it was nice to know that she could answer his occasional _You okay, kid?_ honestly and not be grilled for the details, especially if the answer was _no_. Veronica smiled back at him, then turned her attention back to the main event.

It was grandmamma who took her aside a the end of the night, a little drunk and clumsy on her heels from the celebratory водки. Veronica looked up into suddenly serious blue eyes and wondered idly if she had any chance of a twenty centimetre growth spurt in the next two years. 

"Hey, hon. Haven't heard from you in a while. How's the quest for Batman?"

Veronica glanced around, but no one else was listening. "I'm still looking," she replied carefully, keeping her voice low. 

"Made much progress?"

"A certain amount."

" _Правильно_." There was an ominous glint in grandmamma's eye.

"If you're going to beat up Bruce Wayne, can I at least watch?"

"But seriously, folks. Veronica, I appreciate your discretion, but don't worry about me. Don't let that bitter, shrivelled up old fossil pressure you into keeping quiet, okay?" 

Veronica shook her head. "No one's pressuring me into anything."

The look on grandmamma's face was almost sad. "That's what I was afraid of. We'll talk more about this later, 好嗎?" 

"好吧."

 

Meg wasn't in school the next day, but whoever'd been stealing passcodes and posting the faked tests evidently was. Nobody not in high school would log back in to Veronica's account just to send horrifically embarrassing Waves to Duncan, хуй. 

Well, she'd deal with that later. For now, a certain incriminating chat conversation had led her to the penultimate step in fingering the guilty party. All that was left was the legwork. With any luck, Veronica would get her money shot tonight, leaving her free to party it up this weekend at the concert.

It was dark by the time the tracking device she'd planted on the IT guy's car blipped to a halt up on Heartbreak Point, the ironically (or maybe aptly) named teen make-out spot of choice on Balboa Island. It was a strip of trees between the GBH and the cliff that fell away about a kilometre on and became the South Bay beaches. Enough cover to provide privacy, a good view of triple moonrise over the water, and far enough into the South Bay for it to be mostly safe at night.

Because she'd done so much photography, even before she started snapping evidence for Mars Investigations, Veronica had invested in a specialist camera-only device, instead of just waving around her hand-held like ninety per cent of the 'verse. Flash, infra-red, adjustable aperture, and a rapid shot option. She gave the pair in the car a good ten minutes to get themselves into a seriously compromising position, then made her move.

Veronica had had a lot of experience at night shooting this past year. Just to be obnoxious, she flicked the flash on when she starting snapping. There was a lot of nudity and tangled limbs and hair everywhere, so it wasn't until Veronica got back home and downloaded the images that she pegged the face. She Waved Meg to hold on until Monday, and then began formulating her cunning plan.

Once the facts were bared under the cold, hard light of day, it turned out to be just another case of fed-up, second-string jealousy, with a side order of possessive bitch: Kimmie Khigir, co-star of Veronica's new photo album, had wheedled the passcodes out of her evidently very flexible boyfriend, the hot IT guy, and posted Meg's test. 

Veronica's test, it turned out, had been posted by Duncan's new and apparently jealous girlfriend. What she had to be jealous of, Veronica didn't know, because he'd dumped her even before her da had lost his job, after a series of increasingly loud and unpleasant arguments. People were idiots.

The embarrassment of walking up to Duncan—she hadn't actually spoken to Duncan since their last fight; they'd been in the same school, same classes, same room when she mistimed her visits to the hospital; but there had remained this bruised silence between them—in order to explain how she hadn't mutated into a creepy stalker bitch, just been hacked, was overshadowed by the rest of the day's events. It was time to man up about it anyway. 

But when the Mayor of Gotham walked in with Sheriff Lamb in tow, Veronica knew it wasn't because they wanted to give him a box of cupcakes. 

"Veronica Mars."

Veronica gave them a bright, empty look that had Lamb scowling. Mayor Stranggore just looked right past her. 

"Is your daddy here, or is he busy peeking in people's windows?"

"You stop dressing up like Catwoman, he'll stop peeking." Ow, and now she had the unpleasant image of Lamb in black leather lodged in her head.

"你的父親," the Mayor interrupted their hostile sniping, the same pained look on her face.

Veronica took her time standing up and wafting over to Da's office in proper secretarial mode. Sticking her head through the door, she said loudly, " _Deputy_ Lamb is here. He's got the mayor with him."

Da gave her a Look. "Show him in."

Smiling insincerely, Veronica cast open the door, announcing, "The detective will see you now."

Mama wandered over to loom behind the unhappy pair, closing the door to Da's office behind herself. Thus precluding any eavesdropping on her part, although she did see both their _guests_ shooting Mama unfriendly looks.

If Veronica had to make a wild guess, she'd say this was about the murder victim who'd washed up on shore this morning. According to the _Gazette_ , it was a young woman, no tattoos, and not processed. Her identity hadn't been disclosed, but there had been a guitar string around her neck: looked like Lucretia hadn't caught the E-String Strangler after all.

At _length_ , the door opened. Veronica gave up all pretence of paying attention to her deskwork. Mama was still leaning against the frame, forcing Lamb and the Mayor to file out past her. She had an odd look on her face, hovering between hard and smug as her eyes followed them out.

"謝謝, Keith." The mayor shook his hand and made for the door, not waiting for Lamb to grab his coat.

"See you tomorrow, Lamb," Da called after them, his tone matching Mama's face. They exchanged a significant look.

"Can't wait."

Veronica stared at Lamb's retreating back, half expecting to see a second set of eyes blinking out at her from that less than dynamic hairstyle. "Что же завтра?"

"Oh, only the day he goes back to running the Sheriff's department," Mama said, thus explaining the smugness.

"A slight exaggeration," Da protested. "I'll be working _with_ Lamb on this case."

The thoughts clicked together in Veronica's head. "Hey, if you're working in the Sheriff's office, you'll have access to the Lilly Kane files. We can finally get our hands on the Crime Stoppers recording, обнаружить того, кто был неназванный источник, который обвинил Abel Koontz."

Da shook his head and sighed. "Weren't you going to be focussing on something harmless, like chasing around that Bat character?"

Veronica glowered at him. Mama coughed to hide a laugh.

 

Well, if Da wasn't going to take advantage of this prime opportunity, Veronica was just going to have to do it herself. If he had access, she had access, after all. 

Veronica kept a bit of a closer eye on the news nowadays than she had since Da was Sheriff, so she knew nothing spectacular had happened last night. She hadn't actually collated Terry's absences with radical criminal activity, but she thought his absence from school today was odd. 

No one had called him in absent as of Veronica's Office Aide period, anyway, and she put it from her mind. After school let out, she headed into the Hill Street Sheriff's Office armed with a sandwich and with eyes peeled for knives, guns, and hype-heads; also for any weak spots. 

Look, here was one at ten o'clock. And it was flirting with her. _Deputy Leo_ , huh? He sure was smiling a lot.

"I'm just bringing some food for my da," Veronica said, smiling back.

Leo leaned forward at his desk, eyes bright. "Hy, если вы хотите, вы можете положить это на его письменный стол. 除非 it's gonna go bad or something, then we have a mini-fridge; I could put it in there."

"I might just take you up on that, 'cause there's coleslaw," Veronica said opportunistically, handing over the bag. 

"没錯."

The deputy took it, without quite brushing her fingers but with the corners of his mouth still tugging up like he couldn't help it. Veronica tore her gaze away from his retreating ass and made a quick pass around the vacated front desk. The Sheriff's office was a seething chaos, as usual, but someone would notice her poking around where she didn't belong before long. Keycards, keys, codes...?

No joy, alas. Veronica was back on the appropriate side of the counter by the time he returned, dodging a pair of detectives with a flattering amount of hustle. He slid back into his seat instead of coming around or otherwise looming over her shortness, which was a novelty when one was used to dealing with Everything-er Than Thou Lamb.

"Word of caution," Leo warned, smiling still and leaning out on his elbows. "You probably shouldn't trust me."

"Oh yeah?"

"Manassan," another deputy interrupted, slapping her badge, some paperwork, and a handcuffed perp onto the counter.

Leo sighed and slid off his stool.

"Every night at nine, the whole dayshift crew goes out to dinner, leaving the double-shifted rookie down here to answer the phones. I usually wind up getting dinner out of the candy machine, if nobody's blasted it with a shotgun." Veronica followed his gesture to the battered apparatus. "A pastrami sandwich could prove to be very tempting."

Leo was taking fingerprint scans as she watched, left then right. Veronica glared up at him mock-reproachfully. "You looked in my bag."

He spared her another grin. _I don't remember the last time I saw so many of a man's teeth_. "我給你說, I'm a scoundrel."

The perp rolled his eyes. Leo handed a plastic flimsy back to the arresting officer.

"A rogue deputy is among us: no sandwich is safe," Veronica shamelessly encouraged him.

"I tell you what; if you promise to come back and visit me, I will stay out of the fridge."

The perp was making gagging noises now.

"Deal." A steal at twice the price, in fact.

"Great," Leo said. "Now if you'll excuse me, I gotta go put chuckles here in holding."

 

The good thing about Balboa Island having its own sheriff's department instead of just being another precinct was that it kept track of its own evidence. The detectives were all safely tucked away upstairs with their rank and their good coffee. Unless something blew up between now and then, Veronica figured the only people on the first floor of the sheriff's office at nine tonight would be her, Deputy Leo, and the night sergeant. 

This was still two people too many to see her stealing evidence, so she'd have to arrange for a distraction. Veronica scrolled through the contacts list on her hand-held. _Aha_.

"Кто это?"

"Veronica. Как дело, братан?"

"Is there something I can do for you?" Aw, Weevil sounded pissed; such a tough guy.

"You could drop by the sheriff's department around, oh, nine-twenty tonight and make a noise up around the front desk," Veronica suggested. She was back in the office now, doing some research on the Grid for Mama, who was shouldering a double caseload for the duration.

"You have any idea how many times I've been booked at that desk?"

"放松放松, the only people will be around are gonna be the night sergeant and a rookie."

"And you." 

"I need to take a look at a little something in the evidence lock-up. It's about the Lilly Kane case," Veronica added persuasively. "I know you want to find out who really did it."

"How did you—"

"I know everything, Weevil. Whaddaya say?"

"好吧. 再見." "До свидания."

 

Veronica returned to the Sheriff's office armed with pizza and a vengeful resolve. As promised, there was Deputy Leo perched on his stool behind the front desk. The night sergeant was puttering around somewhere, no one she knew; probably a transfer from one of the police precincts.

He came over, giving Leo a broad wink and jerking his chin at the eerily empty bullpen. Well, how obliging of him. Leo ushered her around to a desk, presumably his when he wasn't stuck doing intake. 

Veronica almost felt guilty about using him like this. Deputy Leo seemed remarkably not to be a 肛門, and he was actually kind of cute. Dark eyes, _really_ good hair, not too tall, just a little русское mumble in his accent. 

He'd just finished telling her how he'd been sent by the agency as a strip-o-gram for good old Inga when she heard Weevil's voice out front, bitching about the noise level on the Hill, of all things, to the night sergeant.

"Uh, excuse me a minute," Leo apologised, getting up.

Veronica would feel guilty, if she could stop thinking about her best friend lying in a hospital bed, pale and silent and seeming to actually shrink away over time. Digging out the keys she'd lifted just now, she made a beeline for the evidence lock-up. 

_"I have a good mind to run for the city council, and if I win—"_ Weevil continued, loud enough to be heard all the way back here; Veronica nearly bit her tongue. 

And that aud disc...was...right there. Great. Veronica shoved the box back on the shelf with her sweater sleeve covering her palm and peeked out the door. Coast was still clear.

Veronica scurried back to Leo's desk and shoved a slice of pizza in her mouth. Weevil gave her a pained look, but quickly recovered his balance.

"Well, then you leave the Sheriff a note: he shouldn't expect Ильи Наварра vote this year!" Weevil finished with an overdramatic flare. 

He stormed out and Leo came drifting back. Veronica remembered to chew.

"Sorry; couldn't get rid of him."

Veronica swallowed. "No problem." 

Leo was just reaching for a slice of his own when the startling chords of Mucous Membrane's _Venus of the Hardsell_ erupted out of Veronica's purse. She gave him an apologetic look and dug out her hand-held. "喂."

"Veronica. Have you seen Terry?"

Veronica froze. "W—"

She caught herself, catching Leo's eye and realising that this was not a conversation she should be having in front of a deputy sheriff.

"對不起. I've got to take this." The weird thing? She almost was. 

Leo just shook his head. "It's been nice meeting you, Veronica Mars."

Veronica flashed him a smile as she walked out. "Wayne 先生. 您有什麼事嗎?" 

"Where's Terry?"

"I—don't know. He wasn't in school today." Veronica pulled out her earpiece as she got into her aircar. "We haven't really spoken this past week. I take it something happened last night?"

"Evidently." Bruce's voice was dry.

"Well, any idea where to start looking? Nikolai? His place?"

"Nothing. There are a few places he stashes his clothes if he doesn't come in to the Cave first; I'm checking them out."

"好, I'm out front of the Sheriff's office right now. Give me a location, and I'll give you a hand."

"That won't be necessary." Ah, there was the hard-line she already knew and loved.

"I do this for a living, Mister Wayne. Don't you think I'd be the _teeniest_ bit useful?" 

"I've been doing this for a long time, too, Veronica."

"But four eyes are better than two. How many locations are we talking about?" Veronica pressed. "Because this seems to be a time-sensitive sort of situation."

Wow, she could practically _hear_ that glower over the phone. 

"There's a condemned building on 111 th street, near the Avenue A overpass. The back lot is behind a brick wall," Bruce ground out reluctantly. "He drives a red—"

"—red hovercycle, license number 3G36K. Detective, remember? Call me if you find anything," Veronica told him and switched off.

Well, this wasn't the good part of town. Veronica checked her mirrors and her taser before getting out to go poke around. Obviously, Wayne was thinking along the same lines she was: if they found Terry's cycle stashed somewhere, whatever had happened had happened in the suit; if not, either the stuff had been stolen and he was still in the suit, or whatever had happened had happened to Terry McGinnis and not Batman. _In which case we can get the police involved_.

"No luck here; got anyplace else on Balboa? And I was thinking, valuable piece of equipment like that, don't you have a tracer on it?"

"For obvious reasons, I don't leave it switched on. I'm not getting any signal from it now."

Veronica thought. "So he's underground?"

"Or out of range; maybe even off-planet."

"I almost prefer off-planet. Do you have any idea how much underground Gotham has? And not just the trains, either."

"Yes," was the laconic reply. 

"Oh. Right. Well, tell me where I'm going."

It was coming away from her third stop, out on a tree-screened stretch of the Gotham Bay Highway between the Narrows side of the Hill and Heartbreak Point, that trouble found her in the form of a fleet of hovercycles gusting up from the bay.

Veronica hung back, wishing not for the first time that night that she was wearing darker colours. They slowed when they saw her aircar parked by the side of the road. Jokerz or Чёрты—although if Weevil wasn't with them, it wouldn't make much of a difference either way. 

Hovercycles and—tattoos. Veronica breathed a provisional sigh of relief. "There's that beautiful, bald head."

"Heartbreak Point's back that way. Or were you heading up the Hill to see little old me?"

Veronica picked her way back to the road. "Working on a case."

"Unfaithful tree?"

"Missing person."

Weevil climbed off his cycle and swaggered over. "Might be more than one, you keep running around out here all alone," he said in a lower tone.

Veronica folded her arms. "Yeah; I'll just go home and hide under my bed."

"Hey, ничего. Means nothing to me." 

Weevil turned and gestured for his boys to mount up again. Veronica stepped up onto the tarmac, watching them with a deliberately cool expression. Hey, wait a minute...

"Wait a minute!" Veronica tripped after him and grabbed his arm.

Weevil turned in his seat. "Ну, что же?"

"Your friend Felix has a new backpack. Where'd he get it?"

Felix made a face and an obscene gesture at Veronica, which she ignored. 

"It fell off the back of a truck. What's it to you?"

"More like, off a red hovercycle."

"Во цель."

"I don't care what you did with the cycle; I just want to know where you found it."

Weevil looked her up and down. "Ну, ладно. Up on 100 th, about four blocks from the Underground station there. Figured some Joker got all jacked out of his head and forgot about it. Это всё?"

"Yeah. That's all. Спасибо." 

"Later, V."

_You owe me_ , that last look over his shoulder said. Veronica's mouth twisted up in wry acknowledgment.

Once the last of the bikers were gone, Veronica powered up her Дворянин and called Wayne back. "Any luck?"

Bruce's voice over the line was unamused. "You found something."

"Я только сейчас встречала с немного Чёртами. They found Terry's hovercycle up on the Hill. Pretty bad neighbourhood; what would you say to a little teamwork?"

"Meet me at the Sac'N'Pac on 120th." 

Wayne didn't argue; but then, a man of Wayne's presumed intelligence would have noticed her leaving out a few crucial details. A brief surge of triumph washed over the sour unease in her stomach. Anything that could take down Batman in that suit was serious. But anyone who'd nailed Batman would be shouting it from the rooftops. Wouldn't they?

Veronica pulled in next to an aircar both expensive and tasteful, which she figured pegged it for Wayne's. Yep; sure enough, there the old bastard was, cheerful as a dragon-mask. He rolled down his window.

"Get in."

Veronica didn't argue.

Bruce turned in his seat and fixed her with a look that weighed about as much as it pierced. Veronica blinked, but held onto her composure with her fingernails.

"仕哪裡?"

"Near the 100th Street Underground station. I'm not sure whether to be encouraged or not."

Bruce grimaced, which seemed to the only other setting his face had on option. "If I can get close enough, I may be able to pick up a signal. But if he hasn't been found," or run over, Veronica's mind supplied helpfully, "he's likely not in the main tunnels. That leaves the old system, the river channels, and the utility tunnels."

Veronica shook her head. "I get that it'd be pretty easy to get lost down here, but why go in in the first place? You'd have to be pretty thick to get yourself stuck just chasing down a mugger."

Bruce's look now was measuring, weighing what to tell her. 天啊, was she ever _sick_ of—! Veronica found herself scowling back, even though she knew it wasn't the brightest move. Bruce's eyes narrowed back fractionally, arriving at some decision.

"My best guess is that it was vampires."

He said it with such plain matter-of-factness that Veronica actually had to regroup and remind herself why it was patently insane.

" _Vampires_?" she managed at last.

"Are you telling me you never wondered why, with the best school in the city, a third of Balboa Island is still tenements and ghetto a century after my father's grant?" Bruce raised an eyebrow. "The Hill's right up against the Narrows, and there's a great deal goes on there never makes it out."

"Including _vampires_. Sure. And how does nobody know about this?"

"It's dark at night when there are no streetlights. And nobody goes through the Narrows who doesn't have to," Wayne intoned. He never just _said_ anything, did he? "I thought I had the problem taken care of forty years ago."

"Right." Veronica shook her head. "Look, I'm not twelve; I don't scare that easy. Whether you just want me gone or you don't want to say what it really is, at least do me the courtesy of being truthful."

"Ask your grandmamma, if you don't believe me. Do you remember last year, when those thirteen children were kidnapped, and then their families were found dead?"

"Sure, and then all the bodies disappeared." Around the same time the Policeman's Ball had literally gone up in flames. Grandmamma had been there, but she hadn't said anything about it.

Wayne's eyes were inward, sharp as honed steel. "With vampires, all you have to miss is one. There was a young woman, almost forty years ago; a vampire took an...interest in her. He drove her insane and then killed her, at the same time as...a friend and I decided to take care of the problem, for good. I thought she was well and dead; I don't know _why_ she waited until Terry..."

He was looking at Veronica again, and she knew he wasn't just rambling this story at her. "I don't know whether Terry is alive or dead, and that's enough for my conscience. I appreciate your help, but this is as far as you go."

Veronica was trying to think and not to think at the same time, because she'd _known_ Grace Manning, and everyone had known it was only the police protective details and Batman that had saved the last four families. But cunt-fucking dammit, she was tired of being scared. For months after Lilly had been attacked until she'd woken up in Shelly Pomroy's guest room without her underwear, Veronica had been deadly scared, because bad things wouldn't just avoid you because you were special, you were loved, you loved someone. The 'verse was big and horrible and mean and fucking terrifying, and no one could stop it hurting you.

Veronica hadn't had to figure that out; she'd been beat about the heart with it. Where it had taken longer for her to arrive was at the point she couldn't live scared. It was like she'd been folding in and in on herself until she'd reached a critical density, like a proto-'verse monoblock, and something inside her had gone _boom_. Looking back on it, Veronica rather thought it had been the long fuse of her temper, which had been notably shorter ever since.

She said, "You wouldn't have told me that story if you actually expected me to get out of this car."

Bruce held his gaze on her for a minute longer, his expression unchanging. You could _feel_ him thinking. "This is dangerous. If I tell you to do something, do it."

"I get it; you're the boss."

Bruce didn't look entirely happy with her tone of voice, but he put the shiny black aircar in drive and peeled out. Veronica looked at the dash and saw the time.

"Oh, 肏."

Bruce glanced over at her as she dug out her hand-held and tapped a call-code. 

"Привет."

"Meg, hey; 是我, Veronica."

"Oh, hey, Veronica! Thank you again; that vid recording saved my life. Cole sent me flowers."

"Oh yeah?" Veronica said, a little dizzied.

"I threw them in the trash."

A puff of laughter escaped her lips. "Молодец. Uh, hey, I actually called to ask you for a favour. Can I tell my parents I'm spending the night studying with you tonight? I've got another case, and with things as they are, Mama and Da probably wouldn't be too thrilled to know I'm running around alone at night."

"Sure thing, Veronica. Maybe we can even do it for real, sometime."

"Спасибо _больше_. Пока."

"Пока."

Now for the other half. Mama, she thought. Da would probably be a wired enough to be hard to fool.

"Hi, Veronica."

"媽媽; 你好. I'm over at Meg's studying, and I thought, since her parents said it was all right, I could just stay here tonight."

"Well given the circumstances, I can't say I mind you not wandering the streets right now."

"Yeah, that's what I thought, too. I'll try and stop by in the morning. Hill High isn't Chilton, after all; people will realise I'm wearing the same clothes."

"I'll let Da know. Спокойной ночи." 

"Спокойной ночи, Мать."

Bruce banked and slowed. "When we get to the station, follow my lead."

The car stopped, settled. Veronica got out before Wayne could lock her in. He levered himself out more slowly, eyeing her with grim amusement. He locked the doors, then gestured at the entrance to the Underground.

"Aren't you worried someone will rip it off?"

"Not this car."

Okay, whatever. 

Down in the Underground station, there was a distinct dearth of clues. The 100 th Street station was not the cleanest, or brightest, or least ominous one in the city. Veronica stared around at the neon calligraphy of graffiti on the dingy wall tiles, spelling out bad jokes. The русские tags had all been scribbled over with leering faces. 

By that and the knot of kids with violently coloured hair and greasepaint, Veronica deduced that the Jokerz were holding the station for the moment, although it was far enough down the Hill for that to've been disputed in the past. The Jokerz and the Чёрты were the two big gangs on the Hill, although there was that weird pocket of gaeilige-speakers more or less run by the Fitzpatricks that no one in his right mind messed with. A step up from the score or so had disputed the Hill in Grandmamma Lorelai's youth.

Bruce was making for a bum huddled up against the wall under a filthy blanket, nearer the tracks. Beside him was a sign written over with characters so illegible as to almost qualify for art. He blinked up at them as they approached, eyes dark and nervous.

"你吃嗎, 老手?"

He looked up at Bruce, still big for an old man, in his dark, expensive suit, apprehension obvious on his seemed face. 

"You sit here often?" Bruce asked, modulating his voice from the habitual growl.

The homeless man squinted warily. "It's my spot, innit?" 

"Then you would have been here last night," and Wayne's voice was still smoother and lighter than Veronica had ever heard it.

"I'm alwuss here. Ain't no place else to go, way I figure it. No one else wants my spot. Too afraid of the kids." His look, briefly grumpy-expansive, grew mistrustful again. "You don't want my spot, do ye?"

"No, no. We just wanted to ask you a few questions, about anything unusual you've seen around here. Say, last night. We would be very grateful."

The homeless man burrowed deeper into his coat, which was if anything rattier than the blanket. Between the high collar and the shapeless hat-like object draped over his head, his face almost disappeared. 

"What sort of unusual?"

"Someone going down onto the tracks. A person with a wrong face."

The homeless man wheezed a laugh, then hand to stop to hack up, by the sound of it, half a lung. "Sir, you just described half the蠢的 kids in here."

"Not the face paint. Ridges, on the forehead." Wane drew two fingers down his forehead in a V, demonstrating. "And yellow eyes."

"Oh, 那些. I reckon 那些是 runaways, on accounta some's so small. Their clothes 是太別緻了, too. I c'n tell, even though they're all dirited up like mine. Yeah, couple came running down here real quick last night, so I's on the lookout for the 警. Weren't no one else come through, though."

"Which way did they go?"

"Right past me. Right straight on down towards the yellow station."

"謝謝, 老手."

"没吃." He was turtled up in his filthy layers again, wrinkly almond eyes half-belligerent, half-pleading.

Wordlessly, Bruce reached into his 藍土 blackwool coat and drew out a grease-stained Sac'N'Pac bag and leaned on his cane to hand it down. The grubby old man's hands appeared for the first time in this whole performance, gnarled and trembling slightly. He unwrapped the sandwich and tore into it voraciously, warm juices dribbling into his patchy beard.

Veronica had kept quiet throughout this exchange, half watching Bruce's interrogation technique, half trying to keep his bulkier form between herself and direct line of sight of that clump of Jokerz on the other side of the not really very large station. Unsuccessfully, it seemed, alas. Here they came now.

"Uh, Wayne 先生—" 

"Whatever you do, don't let them get between you and the tracks," Bruce told her sotto voce, the growl back in this voice. "When I say _now_ , jump off the platform and stay as close to the wall as you can. 懂嗎?"

"You better know what you're doing, old man."

Bruce's answering smile was less than reassuring.

Bruce turned away from the tracks, like he might be thinking of going back up. Veronica was on his right, and the wall was on hers. The Jokerz, predictably, started to fan out between the pair of them an the exit.

It was five on two; not the greatest odds, but this was Batman next to her and despite all his bitching about his conscience, he didn't seem particularly worried. He certainly wasn't leaning on that cane very much. 

"Leaving so soon? You'll miss your train," said one with a big yellow smiley face on his shirt.

Bruce just sort of stared at him like he was waiting for him to go away.

Smiley frowned. "Hey, blanker. I'm talking to you!"

"I'm waiting for you to say something worth responding to."

"Oooh, look at him," Smiley said, coming closer. "Fancy coat. _Fancy_ shoes. Fancy little girlfriend." 

He looked Veronica up and down appreciatively. "What do you say, huh? Will your 爺爺 here let you come out and play?"

Smiley took another step closer, which was apparently what Bruce had been waiting for. He cold-cocked Smiley with his cane, downing him smoothly, then kicked the body into the path of the rest of the charging gang.

Bruce caught a punch from the next one on his cane. While they were exchanging blows, a girl came up from the side, swinging something that could have been a club, a mace, a really big chicken leg, or an oversized blackjack. Veronica ducked and tasered her in the stomach, catching only the spiked edge of the weapon with her shoulder.

The remaining two were more hesitant about rushing in to assist their doubled-over compatriots. Two on two for just a moment, a few eloquent snaps of Veronica's taser persuaded one to stay out of range and wait for an opening. Bruce was about to sock it to the last guy, who was trying to rush past one of his friends as she simultaneously tried to stumble to her feet, when he froze, stumbled backward, and shouted " _Now!_ "

Veronica took a step backwards and leaped over the edge of the platform, scrambling hastily back from the tracks. A hand—Bruce's, she assumed—shoved her from behind and into the darkness of the Underground tunnel. 

Barely three steps in, the hand was back, shoving her against the wall. Veronica resisted, her startled brain taking an extra second to process what Bruce must have seen— _heard_ , back up on the platform—and pressed herself as flat as she could.

The Underground train rumbled past them, deafeningly loud. The screech of brakes seemed to take forever to stop. Almost before it did, Bruce was urging her on again.

Once they were well past the train, Bruce pulled out a dim, reddish light. He stopped and handed her something.

"Looks like an R29 receiver. For the suit?"

"Modified. It'll have a range of maybe fifteen metres through the walls down here, further in open space."

Veronica turned it over in her hands. "Must be nice to have your own R&D department."

"It's come in handy. Let's get moving."

"So, what should I do if I see a vampire?"

"By that time, it's probably already seen you," Bruce replied laconically. 

"Well, what do they look like? Weird foreheads, yellow eyes?"

"Very good hearing," Bruce added pointedly.

Veronica rolled her eyes, safely invisible.

They continued on in silence, Veronica stumbling unfairly more often than Bruce, cane or no. Night vision, she thought glumly. If she'd known she'd be doing this, she would have grabbed a pair of those cool little spy-specs from the office.

Veronica assumed Bruce was looking for out-of-use side passages of some kind. The marshier North Bay area—where the warehouse district and the spaceport and the Heights were—had a bunch of sunken buildings and tunnels of various sorts, in addition to the usual collection of utility and Underground passages.

They had taken one right turn, deep in the bowels of the city, about half an hour ago. Staying away from the stations, she figured. Bruce obviously had a pretty thorough mental map of the Underground, although Veronica had no idea where they were but _down_. Logically, if the—whoever—used the 100 th Street Station regularly, it was because it was the most efficient way to their lair. 

Another train. Veronica flattened herself against the wall, almost past being terrified by now. She tried not to think about how she'd explain the state of her clothes to her parents in the morning. Meg's parents were not the sort to host impromptu mudwrestling tournaments.

Of course, there was no reason to assume they had run straight to their lair, even if Terry had been cloaked. But if they lived down here, knew the passages, they'd probably want to avoid places where they could be seen. Terry was such an idiot to come down here on his own, presumably without telling Bruce he was doing it in the first place. Kids got lost in these occasionally, she knew from when Da was Sheriff. Got lost, and never did get found.

_Look at it logically, Veronica, she told herself. Sure, Terry's had time to get anywhere in the city twice over, even on foot; but if he were still that mobile, after a few hours, he'd have been able to get to a station and get back up to street level; they're not that hard to find_. No, if he was stuck somewhere, it was somewhere—

"等一下!"

—close. Veronica edged carefully back the way they'd come. The indicator light blinked on, then off. Forward a little—good. 

The air shifted. Veronica looked up at Bruce, moving freakishly silent for an old geezer. He didn't say anything, so she swept the receiver right (good, good, gone), then left (good, good, good—gone?). Frowning deeply, she tried down (gone almost immediately). That left...up?

She exchanged a look with Bruce, who shrugged one shoulder. _Might as well._

Carefully, Veronica raised the receiver, cautious to keep it aligned. The signal remained strong. Wordlessly, she looked at Bruce.

He took it and raised it higher, nodding slightly. "He's up there, somewhere."

"Above the Underground, but still low enough to escape detection from the street. How do we get up there?"

Bruce appeared to consult his Magical Mental Map of the Peculiarities of Gotham City. "Follow me."

"Whatever you say, mama duck," Veronica muttered under her breath. Bruce was already moving.

There was another turn, an access panel, a ladder, all smelling progressively more—disused was a more polite term than foetid, right? No lie, she was a little turned on by Bruce's brain right now. She'd be a little more turned on if he weren't a hundred going on corpse and currently leading her closer and closer to what smelled like sewers.

"Please tell me we're not headed for the sewers."

"No; the storm drains are too near the surface. Too much daylight exposure, and I'd have been able to pick up the suit's signal. The accesses to the data cable lines are more shielded, not to mention more useful."

"Shiny." Three whole sentences; he must be warming up to her.

The utility tunnels were even darker than the Underground had been. Veronica's eyes strained, and she knew Bruce was slowing his pace so she could pick her way without tell-tale fumbling. They'd had to cover more than a bit of lateral distance to get to the access hatch, and she just hoped Bruce really did have a GPS in his frontal lobe.

The tunnels seemed to last forever, slow step after slow step, jumping at every sound in a darkness that didn't seem nearly empty enough. Keeping her eyes on the receiver was taking progressively more willpower as the useless urge to strain to see into the oppressive shadows grew. 

It was a lot easier to believe in vampires down here. Hell, she could believe in Reavers and Readers and the Great Bird of the Universe, too. She'd believe in the five scrolls and that Vanyel Demonsbane used magic to blow up three Alliance cruisers over Ba Sing Se instead of big damn bombs and that half the Migration ships had arrived here in Ravine empty because everyone on board had vanished in a flash of light. Veronica was just a cringing little primate scrabbling through dark burrows under the surface of an alien planet, with an abrupt and adrenaline-shot certainty that her superstitious ancestors hadn't been so primitive after all.

As tightly wound as she was, Veronica didn't hear the one that found them. Bruce reacted almost quickly enough, shoving her aside and taking a fall that, even though professional-looking, made her worry for his bones. 

The dim silhouette advancing on him was female. The way it moved made Veronica cold; like a stalking dragoncat. The silence was audible, as though sound were being actively negated. She couldn't even hear her heart beating. 

Veronica was breathless against the thick cables that ran through this space, but Bruce was down. He squirmed and fumbled, like he was trying to back away from their assailant or get his cane in a position to lever himself up. The woman stepped on the fallen cane with one bare foot and leaned down. 

Bruce moved in a flash like lightning. His arm came up and punched forward before their assailant had a chance to do more than flinch back.

Veronica was expecting her to stumble, maybe to fall. Curse, kick Bruce, get distracted enough for Veronica to sneak up and taser her. She had not been expecting the woman to _disintegrate_ dissolved," Veronica hissed, trying to free her arm. "What is that, some new kind of weapon?"

"It's a sharpened piece of wood."

"You _stabbed_ her, and she _dissolved_. You don't even know who she was!" 

"She was a vampire, and she was attacking us. Keep watching that receiver."

"Jesusallahbuddha," Veronica swore.

But he was right. Hysterics later; now, she was more or less stuck with Bruce, and Bruce wasn't going anywhere until he'd located Terry. Veronica just hoped he'd be able to locate the exit of this rabbit hole, after.

This time, when the signal light flickered on, Veronica stopped Bruce with a careful hand on his arm. She cast around again for the strongest signal: wall.

Some more creative navigation by Bruce, and this time the signal came back almost as soon as they made the turn. The ceiling really was lower here; it wasn't just Veronica's imagination. Bruce hunched even more than usual, head nearly scraping it. The passage as narrower, too. _Good thing or bad thing?_

Noise, finally—voices as they rounded another bend, the signal very strong now. And light: a sudden flash that nearly blinded Veronica, then disappeared.

The source was moving, but the light was still on, Veronica realised, squinting now against the brightness. Bruce pocketed his and held his cane in both hands, like a staff or a sheathed sword. They started moving again, a little faster.

It was a fight, Veronica saw as they approached. A pretty ugly one, taking place through or around the mangled door to what must have been some sort of control or maintenance station. And, _finally_ , yes, that was Terry's voice growling,

"Get the— _хуй!_ —off me!"

Veronica switched the receiver for her taser. She recognised Batman's ears from a weirdly-shaped mass apparently engaged in some sort of upright wresting contest. Someone else, _not_ Batman, was picking himself back up to join in again. 

Veronica rushed in and tasered his ass; vampire or disgruntled repairman, he went down. When she looked up, Bruce was helping Terry pry off one of two small figures attempting to immobilise him.

Veronica could only assume they were successful, because something hit her in the stomach as she was straightening up and bowled her over. Her head cracked against the concrete floor and the taste of blood flooded her mouth. When the flashing lights cleared from her vision, she was looking up into a pair of wide, yellow eyes in a shockingly familiar face.

She stopped trying to catch her breath, or breathe, actually. The light wasn't very good, but there was enough of it for her to see the cracks proliferate across Grace Manning's skin, suddenly hard and lifeless as clay. Delicate as paper ripping. Insubstantial as dust.

The next thing she remembered was being on her hands and knees, retching. Someone touched her, triggering a surge of panic, until Terry's voice broke through, saying _calm down, Veronica; it's all right.Успокойся._

She felt sick and dizzy and cold, and her elbows hurt. Also her hands, she thought from flailing ineffectually at the Batsuit. 

There was another wave of dizziness when she let Terry help her to her feet. Ow, and that was her head. Ow.

"Are you okay?"

"是," Veronica managed, touching the back of her head gingerly. She looked at her fingers; no blood, at least.

Bruce walked over and handed her her taser. Veronica looked at it dumbly in her hand, then stuffed it in her—surprisingly still present—bag. She looked up, and up, and met Bruce's eyes. 

"Let's get going," Terry suggested. After a brief pause, he added, "Does someone know the way out?"

"I do," Bruce said. 

_Pull yourself together, Veronica_. "Hy, what are we waiting for?"

The way out seemed even longer than the way in had. This night had lasted forever, and when the three of them, two visible and one cloaked, emerged from the Underground station at 95 th and Euclid, Veronica was surprised the sky was still a heavy, depressing maroon. 

After far too long a walk, they all piled into Bruce's car, Terry still invisible. Veronica didn't blame him for not wanting to fly after whatever he'd just been through. She let herself sink into the aircar's plush seat and stared at the moons racing each other across the bloody heavens. 

It was only the third time Veronica had been to Wayne Manor, but she was too tired to be impressed, or to be embarrassed when Bruce insisted Terry strip so he could check him for injuries. He probed her scalp, too, but nothing else hurt bad enough to be serious. 

Terry went to take a shower and came back with some food. Veronica stuck to juice and painkillers.

"What time is it?" she asked eventually.

"A little after three," Terry told her. He was dressed again, but there was a new bruise purpling up the side of his face atop the fading one she'd deduced last week.

"Lot of good that suit of yours does," Veronica observed.

"Hey, at least it's still attached. Vampire in a bad mood can tear your head right off," Terry replied around a bite of exceptionally thick sandwich.

"How can you _eat?_ " 

Terry shrugged. "I haven't eaten in thirty hours." He swallowed and returned her look seriously. "It gets easier with practice."

Veronica made a pained face. 

"Hey, why don't you get a shower? We—and by we, I mean _I_ —will stick your clothes in the sonic washer. They'll be clean by morning."

The guest shower in Wayne Manor was so obscenely sybaritic, it almost made her feel human again. Spending a lot of time alone wasn't at the top of her list right now, though, so she wrapped herself in a dark blue, fluffy robe that probably cost more than her entire wardrobe and wandered back downstairs.

"Why are you dressed?" Veronica asked Terry crankily.

"Like, half of my clothes live here now. _I_ practically live here, now. You want to borrow some ship-knits? Or, you know, Wayne's got a bunch of ancient stuff in stas-storage up in the attic. I think some of it used to be your grandmamma's."

"How about a bed?" Veronica slumped into a chair and rested her head on the kitchen table.

"Eat something first, trust me. I'll be back."

Veronica was nibbling half-heartedly at some toast when Terry returned a few minutes later. He was carrying a bundle of clothes. There was a pair of slippers perched on top, as fluffy and blue as the robe.

"I guess they're a little big," Terry said apologetically when she came back out of the guest room. 

Veronica looked down. She'd rolled the waistband up three times, and she was still stepping on the hems with the fluffy blue slippers, which she was seriously considering stealing. What was the etiquette in situations like these?

Terry was also holding out a cup of tea. Veronica pushed back the sleeves of both shirt and robe to accept it and revised her estimation of how good a boyfriend he'd been upward. Unsurprisingly, Wayne also had really good tea.

"Shouldn't you be sleeping?" Veronica asked finally.

Terry blinked at her blankly. "Shouldn't you?"

Veronica drank her tea.

After a while, Terry shook his head and gestured toward the door with his own mug of tea. "C'mon."

She followed him, half curious and half on autopilot, her head pretty foggy about everything except the need for some sort of buffer between her and her adventures in Gotham's seamiest underbelly before letting herself fall asleep. He took her through a servants' hall back to a lift tube that wafted them all the way up to the dim and dusty attic.

"After my first throw down with the vamps, I went to Под Липами and let Nikolai fuck my brains out. That's when it started."

Veronica privately raised an eyebrow; she didn't think she'd ever seen Terry this open—not completely open, of course; but that wall of sarcasm and gloom or whatever was down. It occurred to her that she might not be the only one needed some contact. He'd been down a dark, lonely hole a long time.

"So what's in all of these?" she asked, peeking into one of the big stas-store dressers. There were a half dozen of them, and orderly ranks of trunks and shelves, all the same solid, expensive-looking make.

"A lot of clothes; Wayne's and his parents' from when he was a kid. Alfred's—the butler's. Whatever stuff his adopted sons left when they pulled up stakes. And..." Terry had been moving down the row, opening doors and peering in like he was looking for something. He stopped at one now and pulled the doors the rest of the way open. "Some stuff I think belonged to you grandmamma; I gather she left in a bit of a hurry."

"As soon as she found out she was pregnant, she cut ties with her parents. 曾祖母 and 曾祖父 are still kind of pissed about that if anyone makes the mistake of reminding them," Veronica said absently, going over. "Makes sense she'd do the same thing here."

Terry was wrapped around his tea like it was a teddy platypus-bear, looking more at the wardrobe than at her. "Her father's a judge, right?"

"Retired a few years back; they've got an estate out on Lucretia now. I think曾祖母 wanted to remove him from temptation. They send us all tickets to come out at Yule most years, but they're out on a _cruise_ for at least two months yet—wow. This does look like Grandmamma."

They were undoubtedly Lorelai's taste. Bright, dramatically cut, with lots of fringe and spangles. Expensive labels, too, but they were all forty years out of style. 

"I have to say, I have a little trouble picturing Commissioner Gilmore dressed like that," Terry admitted.

"You do not know grandmamma well enough." Veronica smiled at something horrifying with panels of fabric printed with animal stripes, sequins, and tassels. 

"Anyway, I think your shirt's a little, um, ragged. I thought some of these might fit."

"Well, not the pants..." Veronica caught his eyes and dug out a smile. "Thanks."

Terry shrugged uncomfortably. "You should try and lie down for a couple of hours. If you give me your keys, I'll pick up your car before I go home."

"Oh, hey, you don't have to—"

"It's best all around," Terry cut her off. "Don't worry about Ace; Wayne's got him in the kennel. Laundry's in the room next to the kitchen—" he was interrupted by a yawn. 

"Понятно. I'll close everything back up when I'm done here."

Terry nodded and disappeared, taking her keys and empty mug with him. Veronica thought he was well started on those closemouthed habits himself.

 

Veronica almost had a heart attack when the alarm clock went off a few hours later, then a more disturbing flashback to waking up in Shelly Pomroy's guest room, nearing a year ago. She fought her way free of the engulfing duvet and and yielding mattress, and the heavy fall of Terry's oversized ship-knits as well as the aching complaints of her body, brought her back to herself.

She washed again quickly, to loosen her muscles and wake herself up, then dressed. Terry had been right: her jacket and pants were okay, but her shirt was ripped and more than a little stained. And there was blood—from her lip, she thought, when she bit it falling down. 

In the kitchen, she found a note, penned with surprisingly elegant strokes she assumed were Bruce's, offering her the kitchen and weighted down with the Дворянина keys. Veronica had a quick breakfast, trying to keep her mind blank while she ate. She was wearing one of grandmamma's shirts, only moderately lurid.

It was six when Veronica left, almost half past when she reached home. The low building with its pool-courtyard in the middle looked alien, like she'd been gone centuries and not hours. She left for school early despite everything, not feeling up to fielding a lot of parental concern about how tired she looked just yet.

Both Meg and Dana found her at school. The most coherent thought Veronica recalled having all day was wondering why, with his reputation as a Bop heavy, Terry bothered to cover the bruises. 

It wasn't until Veronica got home again and was unpacking her homework that she remembered the pilfered Lilly Kane hotline disc in there. She hoped it wasn't shattered.

Putting her homework aside for a moment, Veronica fished out the disc—all in one piece; so far so good—and slipped it into her DSB's read-slot. Unencrypted. _Nice job, Lamb._ She hit _play_.

It was a large file, and the calls ran the very predictable gamut gamut from jackass to paranoid to fruitcake. Veronica felt almost relieved at her habitual misanthropy waking up; a return to normalcy, of sorts. 

She shouldn't have been worried about accidentally running past the Abel Koontz tip; it was pretty obvious. Brief, serious, coherent; plus all that electronic distortion. Well, she'd been hoping Lamb had just been too much of a lazy сука to bother trying to track it down. As it was, Veronica thought she might have the resources to do it on her own.

"喂."

"Mac; it's Veronica."

"Oh, hey, Veronica. What's up? That thing with your friend's all sorted out, right?"

"What? Oh, yeah. I was wondering if you could work some techno-wizardry for this case I'm working on. I'm Waving you an aud file. The voice on it's been digitally altered; think you can strip it down?"

"Maybe. I'll give it a shot."

"Thanks." Veronica rubbed her eyes. "I owe you one."

"Are you all right?" Mac asked.

"Yeah. Just a—late night last night. P.I. stuff; it's the biz."

"Righteous," Mac said, with dry commiseration. Veronica felt her face crumple into something between a laugh and a grimace. "I'll get back to you on the aud file," Mac added after an awkward beat.

"And I'm going to fall asleep on my biology homework."

 

Veronica felt either short of sleep or short of sleep without nightmares for the rest of the week. Da kept looking concerned, and Mama tried twice to get her to talk about it. They were both busy, though, and fat buddha knew Veronica had more than enough to occupy her time.

It was Friday evening, and Veronica was leaving the police station again. Deputy Leo's _band_ was practicing tomorrow, and he wanted her to stop by. For some reason, she could see the look Lilly would have had on her face when Veronica told her that very clearly. Maybe she'd go see Lilly; it had been awhile since she'd bumped into Celeste Kane unexpectedly late at night; she was probably overdue for an exhausting verbal catfight.

As Veronica was powering up her Дворянин, the trashcan rattle of Топанья _Gotham City Night_ cut across the radio. She frowned and picked it up.

"喂."

"Bruce and I talked about it. We want you to come in tonight."

Veronica had been dialling down her radio. She froze with her hand on the knob. "You mean—?"

"Congratulations. You are one stubborn motherfucker."

 

Interlude (Belker)

"我們 有什麼?" 

"Oh, good, sir. You made it." 

Captain Columbo never looked like he was hurrying, but he appeared right out of nowhere sometimes. Chief of Police Michael Belker nodded acknowledgement to his sudden presence and swept the crime scene, a jewellery store in the South Ferry. There were two dead police officers facing each other on the showroom floor.

"Что же это, Captain?"

"Well, sir, нам надо ждать ballistics; but it looks like they shot each other."

"Why? What were they even doing _in_ here? Did they call in a burglary?"

"Ferry say it was an officer...Starr. But it sure _looks_ like a robbery in progress. Vid lines were cut, for one thing. 只幾個事."

"You always have a few things, Captain. 好吧; lay it on me."

Columbo cleared his throat, gesturing with his cigar like it was a laser-pointer. "Well, sir, first of all, the visual recording devices were clipped, just like I said. But the alarms, they were disarmed, which required knowledge of the security code. Second, you can tell from the way they fell they were facing each other with their weapons drawn. Now, why would they be pointing their weapons at one another at all? Could have been an argument, but look at how far apart they are. Maybe there was someone else there. Standing between the two of them."

"And he got out of the way just in time?" Belker felt his eyebrows climb. "That's some mighty rare kind of luck, is what that is."

Columbo was shaking his head. "Hy, that's what I thought, too, sir. Except we also found this, which is the third thing."

Columbo fished around inside his rumpled trench coat and finally pulled out an evidence bag. Inside was a red plastic flimsy. 

Mick Belker had been at this long enough to have no illusions that, when he was Waved out of Henry's bed in the middle of the night, the chances of his making it back were very slim. But his stomach sank at the indefinite string of very unpleasant days he could already see looming in his future.

"Now that, looks an awful lot like the same sort of thing that got left in that lab a few weeks ago, where we found poor Doctor Garber's remains."

If Belker had been irritated before, he was sudden stone serious. "Yes, it does." He looked Columbo in the eye. "Thank you, Captain. I want your best people on this. Pull Bailey and Noël off of Batman if you have to."

"Pardon my saying, but you don't think the two could be related?"

"It's possible, but it seems to me this isn't really Batman's style." Not that he couldn't think of at least three ways to blame Gotham City's most overenthusiastic volunteer for inspiring this hairball. Why did the crazies always fixate on _him?_

 

**Part Four (Terry)**

There was a connexion. Another red flimsy had appeared at a crime scene, this time a mess with some cops down in the Ferry. 

"Maybe they can keep a lid on it." 

Terry might have been able to dredge up a bit more sincerity if he hadn't been so busy holding Ace back. Ace being Ace, he was still offended by the fact that Veronica smelled like her pit-bull most of the time.

"Cops ripping off stores at night and murdering civilians to cover it up? Yeah, that's not going to get any media coverage." The look Veronica gave him spoke volumes.

"This isn't the first one," Terry told her grimly. 

The two of them were walking down the steps to the Cave. It had been a couple of weeks now, and he had to say that Veronica was resilient, if nothing else. Terry had been patrolling a lot, while Wayne more or less beat martial arts and the basic course of Bat philosophy into her. 

Veronica had apparently told her parents she'd joined a gym or 武館 or something, to explain the sweaty exhaustion and soreness. Terry couldn't say he wasn't looking forward to having someone to spar with. Wayne could still handle himself, but he wasn't really up to long sessions and perfect technique. 

"Last one was a virologist, infected in his lab. There were a few others; we haven't been able to prove they're connected."

"He leaves some sort of calling card?"

"Calling card, evidence, moralising diatribe. Belker gave me—us—a crack at the first one; I'm going to swing by and see if I can get my hands on this one, too."

"Mind if I take a look?"

"You can ask," Terry told her as they circled around behind the suit cases to the showers. "But старик'll probably just keep you on the strength-training yoga until you're permanently bent into a pretzel."

"That what he did to you?" Veronica asked, walking around behind the extensible break Terry hadn't actually realised was back here two weeks ago. 

It was weird, having someone else around in the Cave. Veronica wasn't—cheerful, exactly, but she had a lot of energy, and she made _noise_. Walking into the Cave was like walking into a tomb, most days. Terry still felt a surge of gut-panic when he came down the stairs and heard a voice other than Bruce's. 

"No; mostly he made me go through stretches until I felt like my legs were going to come off." 

Terry stuffed his street clothes in a wad onto one of the shelves thoughtfully provided for that purpose and pulled the suit out of his backpack.

"Well, whatever he's trying to do with this—break me, brainwash me, whatever—it's not going to work."

"Wayne's not trying to brainwash anybody."

"If you say so. It's definitely not a self-help tutorial."

"Hey, you're the one who wanted to join up," Terry pointed out heartlessly.

"It's not my fault he thinks he's right all the time."

Terry paused in pulling up his sleeves and sighed. "Could you maybe try not to be contrary for the sake of being contrary? Just for once?"

Veronica paused. "You're on his side." It was almost an accusation.

Terry jerked down his cowl irritably and stepped out of the screened area. Veronica emerged a few seconds later in workout clothes.

"If you're not just fucking around with this, we're going to have to have each other's backs out there. I need to know I can count on you. And part of that is understanding why Bruce does what he does, and what the limits are. I'll tell you right now: if you're not willing to play by his rules, you might as well walk out right now and save us all a lot of time."

Veronica was staring up at him with hard eyes. Hard to tell what if anything got through. "We'll see."

"You will. It's his city." _And mine_. It was more than just one crime, the deep injury and deeper drive for revenge. It was the crime that made you feel all the crimes. _His city_ , Terry'd said; but the city owned Wayne, not the other way around. Terry could feel it grabbing him, too; you almost didn't feel the claws, unless you fought it, or something particularly vile seized you.

Like now. He had a Wave to send to Belker, and then hopefully some evidence to examine. _You'll see all right_ , he thought, looking down at Veronica's stubbornness. 

When he got to Police HQ, it wasn't just Belker waiting for him on the roof. Terry groaned.

"What is it?" Bruce asked. 

"Belker's got Gilmore with him."

"Don't let her distract you," Bruce advised. 

"I'm still going to keep an eye out for dragnets," Terry muttered.

"If you have to get arrested, wait until we have the new suit finished. Veronica's too small to work the exosuit."

"I'm landing now."

"Come straight back when you have it," Wayne told him and cut out just as Terry touched down on the roof.

Belker looked harassed, and Gilmore was waiting with her arms crossed. There was a folder in her hand. 

"It's about damn time," Belker growled. "There's such a thing as common courtesy, hairbag."

"Nice to see you too. Is that for me?"

"Well, that depends."

"Depends on what?"

"On what you have to tell us." Gilmore stepped forward, looking him straight in the visor.

Terry squinted back at her. He really hoped she wasn't going to make a habit of this. 

"That was the deal," she reminded him.

"He thinks he's plugging holes in the justice system. He's angry enough to want to make noise, and smart enough to think he can do it without being caught."

"Wow. What an _incredible_ insight. He's only waving our dirty underwear all over the news. Skywriting would be more subtle."

"Disillusionment of this magnitude, he's from a Core world," Terry continued, mentally counting to ten and keeping the emotion out of his voice.. "Probably Alliance. The Whittaker case, the Mercy cases, those prototype fighters blowing up. Tell me you don't see a pattern."

"We're gonna take this guy down," Belker said feelingly. "And if I find out you're playing us in any way, I am going to feed you your own kidneys. 你懂嗎?"

Terry bit back the first heated response to come to mind. _Are you questioning my honour?_ Belker would learn where the lines were drawn, and soon if things kept going the way they were going. Пусть. 

"Tomorrow. Dawn." Gilmore extended the folder, holding it just out of his reach. "Don't make me regret this."

Terry smiled.

 

The rest of the night was sleepless, but surprisingly productive. Physically, the red flimsy was identical to the other. They both traced back to the same quality but common manufacturer; no help there. No prints on this one either. 

"Look at this." Terry pointed to a section of flimsy. "Isn't this the same guy?"

Bruce grunted. "I'll pull up the news archives."

"It's that armed robbery fatality from about a month ago. This article's date-stamped...about a month before that. 'Father and son reunited after twenty years'. I'm getting a bad feeling about this."

"You're not the only one."

So far, they'd learned that the two dead cops had apparently had a small-time burglary racket. Someone stumbled over it, they shot first and lay the blame on the corpse. A real class act, no doubt.

But the real focus of the information on the flimsy seemed to be the guy who got shot at the last robbery. This wasn't just his biography. This was—military service, job history, references, school records, hobbies, foster parents, _pets_. His father's, too. Way more information than they'd gotten on the last victim. 

"How's you case coming?" Terry asked Veronica the next afternoon, pushing his backwards grav-chair away from the mainframe and pressing the heel of his hand to his temple. 

"Mac says she's decrypted the voice from the Crime Stoppers tip-line. Now, I just need to find a playback-speed that matches up to an existing voice ID. How about yours?"

"Continuously more bizarre. Look; he seems even more obsessed with the victim than the crime."

Veronica leaned over his shoulder to see. "Well, that might be a clue."

Terry shot her an irritated look. "Thanks."

Veronica shrugged it off and dropped into a free chair. She fished an aud disc out of her bag and fed it into a reader slot on the mainframe. _—Abel Koontz. I know who killed—_

Terry tuned it out and went back to his pathetic attempts at profiling. 

_—girl. His name is—_

What really didn't make sense was, if the man had been this psycho in the Core, why wasn't there any record of him? Government being more rudimentary on Rim worlds, people there often lacked the same sense of right and wrong, with a...greyer attitude towards legality that didn't usually spark the same sort of heart-stuck outrage that produced revenge-crazed psychopaths. 

_—killed the Kane girl—_

The more tightly regulated Core worlds of the Alliance and the (former) Empire, now, people got bit by them, might feel well and betrayed. Something to do with separations. Abductions—?

_—Kane girl. His name is Abel Koontz—_

"Wait a minute. Try that one," Terry interrupted. 

Veronica glanced up. "You recognise the voice?"

"Yeah, I think so. Try it."

"好啊."

Veronica hit a few commands and started the search, then sat back. "Where's Bruce?"

"It's still a little early in the day for him yet. He'll be down in a few hours." Terry yawned and reached for his coffee. "How's the suit coming?"

"Slowly. That is a _lot_ of nano-circuitry; for once, I'm actually glad I'm not taller. Plus, we're apparently incorporating some modifications."

Terry swallowed and felt a little warmed. "Increased resistance to radioactivity. Blight's still out there, even if we haven't heard from him in a while."

"I tell you what, I wouldn't have believed in vampires if we didn't already have news footage of a guy who glows in the dark and discharges pulses of radioactive energy." Reminded, Veronica picked up her own coffee. "Speaking of the news, they're already calling your vigilante the Pretender."

"太好了. Hey, do me a favour—"

"Aha! Good work, McGinnis."

Terry kicked his grav-chair closer to get a better look. "You got him?"

Veronica nodded absently. "Alexander Jasnovich Alogrin. Born 3480, since then he's spent about half his life in prison. Assault, manslaughter—ooh, here's a good one: tried to smuggle some jaguar-monkeys off planet. Not to mention a catalogue of tattoos almost as impressive as—"

Veronica broke off with a self-conscious glance at Terry. He kindly let it pass.

"Yeah; I've seen him around. One of Nikolai's lieutenants."

"If he's got stars, it happened after his last arrest."

Terry shrugged. "I'd tell Nikolai to keep an eye on him, but Nikolai keeps an eye on everybody."

Veronica gave him a fishy look. "You know, Terry, you're running out of excuses not to explain this thing to me."

"Someday when I've got less on my mind. It's really nothing for you to worry about."

"You are so full of shit, McGinnis," Veronica said, shaking her head.

Terry grimaced agreement. 

"Hey, so you were about to ask me something?"

He took it for the peace offering that it was. Honestly, Veronica probably deserved that explanation at this point, but he couldn't even contemplate dredging the whole mess up now and exposing it to her not historically sympathetic judgement. There had been another attempt on Nikolai's life three days ago, but there was no way he could justify dropping the vigilante thing to go investigate it. Three people dead was officially serious.

"Huh? Oh, yeah. I was going to ask if you could keep an eye out for anything involves kids or families. I wanna nail this guy before he gets кого-нибудь следующий на очереди." 

Veronica softened a little. "Sure. I can do that."

Wayne actually agreed with his analysis, when he came downstairs. "Why don't you start combing through the news archives? Start with this month, but I want you to go back and dig up all the cases that fit this profile for the last year." Wayne's eyes bore into the holo-screen. "This _Pretender_ identifies as much with the survivors as the victims."

"But doesn't he realise то, что он причиняет _his_ victims' families страдания?" Veronica asked.

"What she said," Terry endorsed belatedly. 

"That's why we call them psychopaths," Bruce replied, very Bruce-ish-ly. "Where are you going?"

"To help find a classmate's dog," Veronica told him. "It's a case. Unlike some people," this with a pointed look at Terry, "I don't get paid to be here. And I've got some clerical work to catch up on at the office. But don't worry; I'll be back later."

She sent a deliberately patronising smile over her shoulder at them and disappeared up the stairs. Equally irritated barks from Ace and from Veronica ( _坐下! Назем! Внизу!_ ) drifted down from the main floor of Wayne Manor.

It was a bad stretch; Terry was more or less constantly plugged into the Grid, sifting news feeds and old articles. Even with the mainframe to help, it was an obscene amount of information. His grades started to slip again, although at least that last round of CATs was over.

The police still didn't have any images of this Pretender. He was annoyingly meticulous about wiping himself off of any computer system he dealt with. Barely anyone in the damned _precinct house_ where he'd assigned himself for a week and a half had seen him without his shades—or at all. _Didn't hang around much. Liked being out on the street. Did you see his 'cycle?_

The virology lab hadn't been much better. The Pretender was apparently _such a nice guy_ , and, well, wasn't Garber obviously a guilty, murderous, lying bastard? Little cooperation forthcoming. If they had even a police sketch of the guy, they could plug it into the hoverdrones; but no. 

So Terry was pouring through a truly depressing ocean of old articles and police reports (they had finally re-established their line into the GCPD network). He hadn't seen Nikolai since three days _before_ the latest attempt on his life, at which point the 蠢人的手 hadn't been broken. Veronica and Ace were still stuck in the same bizarre pissing contest it had taken him—well, eight months to get past. And to top it all off, there was a new serial bomber on the loose. He was sending anonymous Waves along with the explosives; an order of magnitude more clever than Mad Stan, but had at least not managed to blow up much of anything. Yet.

Terry was patrolling right now, because whatever _might_ happen in the future, what was going on on the streets was just as bad. Bruce was more than capable of doing his own research. So was Veronica, come to think of it. Bruce had to teach her how to fight, but she was at least as good a detective coming in as Terry was after nearly a year under Bruce's gentle guiding hand.

Tonight was refreshingly routine: going around scaring off muggers and pick-pockets. He kept seeing that long string of headlines, like it was scrolling across his HUD, all the way back to Maryasol Reyes a year and six weeks ago. It had taken three months for them to even find the body. 

Terry tended to swing by the Hill on patrol about twice as often as any other neighbourhood in the city; but of course the Hill was where all the gangs and vampires were, not to mention the Fitzpatricks' little fief. 天啊, he hoped the Pretender didn't fixate on Drusilla's sick little mess at the Policeman's Ball last year. What этот сволочь would do with a (sort of) conspiracy to conceal the presence of Vampires In Their Midst, Terry could only imagine.

So Terry was actually already heading in the right direction when the squeal came in.

"Gang rumble on the Hill," Terry told Wayne, weaving the Batmobile through the tenements. "Чёрты and the Jokerz; always a fun mix."7  
"Будь осторожен."

"Всегда."

Terry swooped in on the mêlée with the Batmobile ahead of all the Sheriff's Department except the car that called it in. He was glad to see the deputies were staying in the car.

There was something strange going on down there. The fast, counter-balancing wheel of conflict forming was crumpling back in on itself, slowing. The gang-bangers on their hovercycles were swinging around to a centre point.

"Someone's down there," Terry said, half to himself. He only had a few seconds to follow up the distraction of the Batmobile with more direct interference, before everyone got their thinking turned around.

"Oh my god, that's Phillip Campbell from the Channel 43 vid-news," Veronica's voice came across the line.

And the it clicked, and Terry was out of the Batmobile, rocketing for the cringing middle-aged man. A cameraman from Channel 43 had caught a stray bullet about ten months ago. During a gang rumble. 

When Terry scooped him up, he was babbling something about _I tipped them off!_ and a predictable amount of _help me!_ Terry dumped him by the squad car and turned around.

The gangs were squaring off again when Terry landed in the lot between them. "If you kids can play together nicely, I'm going to have to tell your mothers. If you have any."

This remark had the dubious merit of redirecting everyone's hostility towards him. But the thing with 'cycle gangs as opposed to good old-fashioned footpads was that the violence tended to spread fast, like flying shrapnel. It wasn't as if anything he could possibly say would make them _less_ fond of Batman. If he could make them forget whatever fool thing had started this cluster-fuck until the Sheriff's Department arrived and forced them to scatter, the only damages would be confined to this empty lot.

"Well, well. Look who we have here."

It was the leader of the Jokerz, inasmuch as they had a unified leader. He was thin and short and wore a purple suit, looking mostly like a blurry scan of the original. He revved his 'cycle's engine, the mad glint of destruction in his eye. 

"Looks to me like a bunch of outpatients from Arkham."

"Funny, funny man. 是不是?"

"Don't make me get a butterfly net."

The attack came from behind: one of the Чёртов creeping in on foot. Terry dropped him without turning around, but then the fucking Joker loon actually tried to run him down. Dodging right instead of up, he hoped the idiot kid didn't get run over. 

No time to check; cycles were coming at him from all directions, whirling chains or those lead-weighted props the Jokerz only half knew how to use. Terry was flying low, a couple Чёрты on his tail. He tilted sideways, grabbing the frontrunner as he shot past and dropping him on his buddy.

A heavy, weirdly yielding something caught him in the ribs, and he shot upwards, right into the paths of two converging 'cycles and on through, letting them slam into one another. They weren't very high off the ground—hovercycles didn't have near the lift power of aircars—but it was probably sportsmanlike to rescue his attackers before their 'cycles got around to exploding.

A flash of light blinded Terry momentarily, and it was only the lack of corresponding pain that drove home to his confused brain that it was the spotlight from an arriving squad car, not incipient concussion. He dropped his restive burdens and shot upwards, engaging the suit's camouflage. 

The rumble was breaking up, much as he'd predicted it would. There was a small tangle of flaming wreckage, the remains of the hovercycle crash, and a handful of unconscious bodies left in the lot. Other 'cycles were already vanishing down alleys and side-streets as the Sheriff's Department arrived in force. 

Terry perched on a section of crumbling wall, safely out of the way. He was surveying the scene for a flash of tell-tale red when something else caught his eye.

 _Holovid concert cameras. Shiny_. "Someone's watching."

"Everyone's watching," Wayne voice said in his ear. "The other end of that feed is in the Channel 43 news office. They started broadcasting as soon as they realised what they had."

"Gorrammit," Terry bit out. "Can you tell if the signal was going anywhere else?"

"I think it was somewhere nearby, but whoever scrambled it did a good job. Do you know what that reporter was doing there?"

Terry grimaced. "It was a setup. A cameraman for this station got hit during a rumble last February, wrecked his arm. Fishy, but I didn't look too closely at it because the guy didn't have any family and he's still alive."

"Is there a flimsy?"

"I'm looking, but I don't see one, unless he planted it on Campbell." That came out perilous close to snapping.

There was silence on the other end of the line for a long moment.

"Once you're done out there, come on in," Bruce said at last. "I learned a long time ago that, however necessary it sometimes is in the short-term, sleep-deprivation isn't a viable long-term solution."

"好," Terry sighed, really too tired to argue. 

 

The next morning, it was pretty obvious where the flimsy had gone: straight to Channel 43, who had seen at once that it would scan better on a DSB than a vid-news display and sold it to the _Gotham Gazette_ , likely in exchange for all the information they could suck out of it. 

The _Gazette_ had published images of the flimsy, layer by layer. Bruce was already examining it when Terry came in after school the next day.

"I bet the police are almost as happy about this as we are."

"Did you expect Lamb to deduce where the Pretender left his calling card when you couldn't?"

"I should have." He was kicking himself for that oversight enough to raise mental bruises. "Makes sense; he's not really that interested in keeping quiet."

"There wasn't much you could have done about it if you had," Bruce pointed out, which was unusually sympathetic of him. "Of course, the more exposure he gets, the more people are likely to be on his side."

"Because everyone love Batman _so_ much."

Bruce did one of his little Batman-smiles that made Terry want to check all his gear for booby-traps. "You'd be surprised. There's a difference between justice and revenge. Or do I have to remind you?"

_Again_. Well, and they'd both crossed that line time to time in the past. And crossed back again.

"I'm going to hit the Grid again, flag some more businesses for employment activity. Oh, and these came for you."

Terry tossed an envelope post-marked from the Elbeza Theatre onto the control panel in front of Wayne. "We seeing a show?" he asked. A little heavy-handed, but it was really at the point where Wayne needed to pry his damn jaw open and say something.

Wayne was spared the effort of thinking up a bitchy put-off by Ace standing up and growling at the secret door. Terry followed his laser-beam hostility to Veronica tripping lightly down the stairs.

"Hey, what's up?" she greeted them breathlessly. Well, at least someone was in a good mood. "What're those?"

"Tickets to the premiere night of Nothing Solid to See," Terry said, fixing Wayne with a hard look.

"You mean you actually leave this house?" Veronica leaned in, noticed the unopened envelope, frowned. "Grandmamma has tickets for that. They're supposed to be really good. It's the troupe Dick Grayson...trains..."

Terry watched Veronica slow to a stop as her mind outraced her mouth with amusement. She cocked her head at Bruce.

"He was..." She trailed off again, eyes narrowing speculatively. "Is he coming back to...?"

"The worlds wonder," Terry muttered half under his breath. Then, louder, "I wish you more luck than I've had." 

Terry suited up instead of hitting the Grid as he'd planned. There'd be time enough later. He did check for booby-traps, though. Twice. It had been know to happen.

These encounters with the Pretender were falling into a depressingly recognisable pattern, and he was consistently two steps behind in it. There had to be a way to cut through the middle steps and arrive at the endpoint in time to catch this дрянь before he succeeded in getting anyone else killed. Campbell had fallen over clutching his heart as soon as Terry dropped him, and was now under observation at Gotham Memorial Hospital; but if Terry hadn't been in the area, Campbell wouldn't have been the only fatality. 

To add insult to injury, Nikolai reported no further contacts from Powers, the continued string of assassination attempts having evidently scared him off. This had been _months_ , now. The angry tension stretched between them when they met nowadays had little to do with sex. 

"One more thing," Terry said at the end of one such extremely unsatisfactory meeting. "About a different case."

Nikolai tilted his head, very cool and controlled but always listening.

"The Lilly Kane attack—"

"Я думал то, что это дело долго решилось," Nikolai interrupted.

Terry glared at him. "Можно. И можно нет. Turns out, it was Sasha called in the tip on Abel Koontz."

Nikolai didn't blink, not that that meant anything. "Before my time."

"Sure." Terry needed to look anywhere except at the cast on Nikolai's hand, even into his eyes. He tuned on his heel. "Пока."

 

Veronica was becoming a real fixture in the Batcave. She was plugged into Wayne's mainframe almost as much as he was these days. It was actually kind of nice to have someone to talk to when the urge to bang his head against the control panels became overwhelming. They were alone for the moment; Wayne was in another part of the Cave doing something complicated with chemistry.

Terry tipped his head back instead, exhaling and closing his tired eyes. "Where do your parents think you are right now?"

"Tailing some cheating lowlife. I got the money shot hours ago: nothing like a little afternoon delight."

"Don't I wish."

Terry cracked one eyelid and to see Veronica giving him a sidelong look. 

"What're you working on down here, anyway?" he asked before she could respond to that.

"Doing background searches on the Kanes." Veronica sat back, too, sighing heavily. "My ordinary resources didn't dig up much of anything, shocker, so I thought I'd try a bigger shovel."

"Any luck?"

"Nothing much on Jake and Celeste. I wouldn't have pegged either one for a murderer, but nothing else makes any sense."

"As I recall, Lilly had a pretty rocky relationship with her parents." As in, she kept dumping boulders in the middle of it.

Veronica's mouth twisted up. "If it had been me with my brains bashed in by the pool, I'd definitely suspect Celeste. Lilly, I think they'd have shipped off to boarding school before they tried anything so drastic."

"And Duncan?" Terry asked carefully, noticing which name was being left out.

"Lilly and Duncan...they pissed each other off sometimes, but it seemed within the normal bounds of sibling behaviour."

"Except?" Terry prompted.

Veronica sat back up and blipped something on the holo-screen. "I haven't found anything on Duncan either, except that he seems to have three times as many trips to the doctor as anyone our age who doesn't also play Parrises Squares."

Terry leaned over to look at her screen. "Huh. You looking at financial or insurance?"

"Financial. Wait, this system will pull up insurance files?"

"It'll pull up _medical_ files, if you know where to look for them." Terry's own battle with the Pretender investigation had less to do with access difficulties and more with the oceanic scope of possible candidate companies to tag with alerts. It was powerful tedious, but he _was_ learning a lot about coding.

Veronica shook her head. "Is there a pie on this planet Bruce _doesn't_ have his fingers in?"

"Not if he can help it."

_Survivors_ , Bruce had said, and Terry's gut agreed. The Pretender was obsessed with the pain of the living. Damage that couldn't be reversed, but still had to be endured. Made Terry wonder, again, what'd been done to him. 

So he went back over the list of wrongs done to people in the last year and put them in an order, murders, abductions, accidents, assaults; alive, dead, widowed, orphaned. Then began the drawn-out process of flagging the employment records of every company, organisation, and agency involved for activity. 

They were looking for a man. Tall, fit, and dark hair were all they had by way of description. That covered as much as a quarter of the city's population; here was hoping the job market was bad this month.

Running down the false leads was at least a break from staring at a holo-screen until his brains fractured into space-dust. Wayne had about a week ago taken to interrupting Terry every three hours or so and sending him out on patrol or his somewhat neglected physical training or, most recently, to spar with Veronica. 

Veronica was definitely improving, although as far as technique went there was never any pleasing Bruce. Terry wasn't sure whether she'd do better or worse in a real fight. On the one hand, he she'd probably fight dirty. On the other, so did he, and he'd had more practice at it.

Terry had just blocked a strike to his face when a tone from the mainframe announced another hit. His head jerked up, and Veronica kicked him solidly in the stomach.

"Oough," Terry grunted, holding his hands up as he tried to get his breath back. 

Veronica backed down, panting and smirking. Bruce only said, "Go. Don't let your guard down."

Terry twitched guiltily, grabbing the suit on his way to the mainframe. "Oh, мать тупого Будды."

"What?" Bruce called after him.

"Bomb squad!" Terry shouted over his shoulder, suit already on, as he jumped into the Batmobile.

Terry had been watching the Wave Bomber case for completely unrelated reasons. And this was the reason that his perfect strategy still sucked: paperwork was always at least a week behind reality. There was a new agent on the bomb squad. Transferred in almost a week ago. 

Five weeks ago, at the first of the Wave Bomber's attacks, a photographer had been permanently blinded. Yesterday, the Wave Bomber had been caught when he accidentally blew up his own house. Well, sometimes the smart ones got stupid; but the Wave Bomber had seemed pretty smart. And the guy they'd arrested had been one of those disaffected, letter-writing malcontents.

It was possible; but Bruce had thought it was fishy, and Terry agreed. It had taken literally three seconds to confirm that the letter-writing hadn't dropped off throughout the bombings. That was enough for him.

"Batman." It was Bruce. "Go to Gotham Park Towers. There's been another bomb threat. Same M.O."

"Do you think it's the same guy?"

"Either way, the bomb explodes."

True. "I'm going to monitor the frequency the bomb squad's on. Try and track down that new agent, Nobel." 

_"—like the Wave Bomber again."_ It was a man's voice, high and tense. _"Might be someone's idea of a joke. Agent Nobel and I—"_

_Crap._

_"—are one our way. Get the area cordoned off."_

_"Roger that."_

Terry was already flying towards the hotel at full throttle, snowflakes streaking past so thickly, he was operating more by sensor than sight. The downtown office building near Police HQ where the bomb squad was headquartered might have been closer to the hotel, but the Batmobile was still faster than even police emergency vehicles. 

He got there just as the signal-tracker told him the bomb squad's team did. The police were already establishing a perimeter, and people were exiting in a steady stream through every available door, eager to get as far away as possible, until they felt themselves safe, at which point they stopped to gawk.

Two blue and white blazers were disappearing through the main doors. Terry dropped out into wintry air, dialing up his camouflage.

"Make sure you've got your vid-link on and recording, старик," Terry growled, shooting through the manual doors.

The two blazers were just disappearing around a corner, towards the back of the building. Terry caught up with them just as they stopped in front of a freight elevator, its doors open.

One of the bomb squad agents was taller, darker, thinner than the other, one hand on his thicker companion's back as though about to push him in. Terry's vision went even redder than the visor accounted for.

" _Nobel!_ " he shouted, still invisible, and launched himself forward at maximum velocity.

The one he'd earmarked, his head whipped around. Dark hair, strong bones, and dark eyes wide with surprise—yeah, that was a face he'd remember.

It was only with a tremendous effort of will that Terry kept his course and barrelled into the real agent, knocking him sideways at the same instant that the Pretender shoved him forward. 

The confused and combative man tangled him up and slowed him down, giving the Pretender enough time to hit the door-close on the elevator and bolt, not to the front, but towards one of the stairwells—going for an emergency exit, probably.

Terry pushed the bomb squad agent away, ready to run after him, but the man clutched at his arm. 

"Barometric detonator," he gasped. "It'll go off before it hits the top of the building."

Or what would be the point, right. "太好了."

He pried open the elevator doors and shot upwards, fumbling in his utility belt for something that would jam the elevator, which was at least not moving nearly as fast as a lift tube would. 

There; fuse strips. They made an unholy mess of the shaft and the brakes, but the elevator lurched to a stop. Terry hacked his way in with a hand-cutter and wriggled through the hole.

"Right. Forty-five seconds and a barometric detonator," Terry muttered to himself. "Where the hell is the nearest way out of this building?"

"There's a window about fifteen metres from the elevator. Go left. Are you going to...?"

"Taking it with me." 

And hoping like hell it wasn't motion-sensitive, too. Grabbing a bomb and flying with it out a window thirty storeys up was not the smartest thing he'd ever done, and once he'd wasted six seconds grinding open the doors, decided to risk the window being on the lower of the two floors he was stuck between, and finally had the thing in his hands, he tried to move fast and think as little as possible.

He was not, not, _not_ counting the seconds in his head, literally flying down the hall and bursting out the window. Out, and out, and away from all the other buildings, and—

" _Now!_ " Wayne barked. "Get out of there!"

Terry flung his arms open wide and rocketed up and away, outracing the shockwave as the bomb blew below him. 

He stopped, finally, circling high under the low, bloody clouds like he'd run out of fuel. For one thankful moment, there was only the restful hum of white noise. The world in neutral.

And then it was back, more police air-cars rushing in. Terry realised he was still invisible.

"Do they have him? Did they get him?" he asked, spiralling down, searching the still-growing mob of increasingly snow-covered onlookers for a tall man with a striking face. He'd probably ditched the blazer, but half the people pressing against the police barricades had been rousted suddenly from their hotel rooms, and they weren't dressed for the weather either.

Gone. Long gone.

 

**Interlude (Lorelai)**

If it had been her choice, she still would have come. She would have found a seat near the front of the first mezzanine balcony, almost on a level with the high bars, the perfect elevation to appreciate the spectacle. She would have watched silently and seen him in every move they made up there, even though he wasn't on the bill.

But she was the Police Commissioner, whup-de-doo, and so she had to sit in a snotty box, in her admittedly gorgeous ensemble, next to her grudgingly dolled-up husband, and be Seen. It was a box, so the whole extended family was here with her, Rory and Keith and Veronica, who seemed upset about something but wedged herself up in a back corner and waved them all off, until she disappeared at intermission.

Bruce was being Seen, too. Lorelai spotted him across the way and smiled, a little meanly. Well, he'd adopted Dick, what, sixty years ago? His attendance at things like this was long foregone by now. _There_ was a family as screwed up as any tied together by blood. _Well, there's blood and blood, isn't there, girl?_

And there was the McGinnis boy seated next to him, looking cool but tired in a suit that had Bruce's fingerprints all over it. No one else. No double-parking of parties in _that_ box, hah. Belker and his Companion, Henry Goldblume, were stuck in with Captain Columbo and his wife, which was fine, so long as he _stayed away_ from her. God. Columbo might be a brilliant investigator, but every time she talked to the man, she had to resist the urge to murder him with her shoe.

And, 天啊, there was the devil himself. Dick Grayson. Still beautiful in a way that reminded her of her naive young heart breaking. The way he moved, he was still more than up to performing himself.

It was an intensely private moment, and Lorelai was more than aware that while her eyes never left the stage, Luke's spent most of the evening on her. The acrobats were dazzling, flashing and sparkling and flowing like water, moving like there was no more gravity here than in the deep, wide Black. The impossible grace that had drawn her up into madness.

Lorelai watched, and missed what it was to fly.

 

**Part Five (Veronica)**

Veronica watched Lorelai 外婆的 face, and watched Luke's, too. He had his heart in his eyes every time he looked at her; that lingering sense of mystery obviously only made her more of the magical creature he'd always seen, phoenix or siren. It was plain to anyone with eyes, and right now it hurt Veronica like a broken bone.

She couldn't make herself stop looking down the row of box seats, closer to the stage, where Meg Manning sat with Duncan Kane and his parents, glowing shyly with the same gently delighted astonishment that had been there ever since Duncan presented himself to her in the theatre lobby. Veronica was having a hard time seeing anything, though, other than Meg's sister turning to dust. 

This was obviously what she got for doing favours for friends. Meg had a secret admirer He wanted to take her to opening night. Veronica was feeling guilty. Meg wanted to know who it was. Meg had so obviously been drifting a little since Cole and the whole Purity Test fiasco, a little uneasy with all those _friends_ who'd turned so easily; and Veronica understood that, didn't she? 

Хуй. And she'd _known_ it was Duncan. She'd found out and kept quiet, and in the end she'd been a good damn friend and let them have each other. Because that was a couple even more likely to send the whole city into a diabetic coma than she and Duncan had been, and could she say either of them didn't deserve to be happy? Well, Meg certainly deserved to be happy, anyway, and Duncan probably wouldn't transform into super-bitch unless Meg's da accused Duncan's da of bludgeoning his sister.

Veronica wasn't still in love with Duncan. She wasn't that pathetic. He'd dumped her about as subtly as an ashtray to the head, and she'd been _glad_ , because while she'd seen that their relationship couldn't stretch across the gulf of his sister's coma and her father's investigation, she'd lost so much in her life that she couldn't bear to be the first to let go. 

So fine. Let him date Meg. Veronica wasn't still in _love_ with him. It was just another hole in her life she didn't feel like looking at right now. 

Any other day, Veronica would have leapt at the chance to snoop around Bruce Wayne's estranged adoptive son, Batman's first protégé, and from some of the old articles she'd been reading, her Grandmamma Lorelai's old boyfriend. Right now, she just wanted to get out of this theatre and take a cold shower. Which wouldn't be a problem, actually, because their landlord had spent the past seven months not fixing the plumbing. 

Later, she'd have to tell Mama and Da something. Maybe even the truth; it wasn't like she had any reason to lie about most of it. 

Veronica had to stop and sit down on the theatre steps. Used to be, she hadn't needed a reason _not_ to lie to her parents.

She had her face in her hands, but she didn't realise she was crying until she heard a familiar voice ask, "What's wrong, Veronica?"

Veronica looked up, a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth of its own volition. "High society; air up there's just to thin for me."

Settling on the dark marble steps beside her, Leo reached over with one of his big hands and wiped a tear from her cheek. Then he made a face.

"My mascara's running, isn't it?" 

"只一點兒." 

Veronica laughed a little and leaned into him. "I take it Meg's responsible for getting you here."

A safe assumption; the last time she'd seen Leo had been almost a week ago, wheedling out another favour for a case. Funny, how often she'd found herself in need of favours from the Sheriff's Department this past month. Not that a friend on the inside wouldn't have been useful before—

"She called." Leo pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his thumb off before offering it to Veronica. "But I came because I wanted to see you."

An hour early, Veronica noted as she dabbed at her eyes. Well, at least her face would match her dress. "You came over an hour early to lurk on the steps of the Elbeza Theatre in jeans?"

"Actually, I came over _two_ hours early, to lurk on the steps of the Elbeza Theatre and hawk flowers."

"You didn't think one of the many law-enforcement agents on duty here tonight might find that suspicious?"

Leo chuckled. "I _am_ a law-enforcement agent, Veronica."

"Oh yeah."

Veronica offered him the handkerchief, which was probably beyond rescuing. When he waved it back, she threaded her arm through his. 

"It's cold out here," she observed.

"只一點兒," Leo admitted again. "You forgot your coat?"

Veronica huffed a laugh. "Apparently."

"Here." Leo untangled himself from her and started shrugging off his heavy winter coat. 

"You been watching too many romcoms, Deputy?"

"C'mon; бери. You'll freeze."

"So will you," Veronica protested.

"Well, I thought we might go someplace warmer."

" _Ooh_. Smooth." 

"Laugh all you want; I'm just gonna sit here and turn blue."

"Blue's a good colour on you," Veronica teased him.

"You're killing me."

"Oh, all right." Veronica stood, grabbing his hand and pulling him up. For the first time, she noticed the straps over his shirt. "A shoulder holster? You're just trying to turn me on, aren't you?"

"Well, this _is_ Gotham," Leo said, which was a fair point. "C'mon; there's a little coffee shop a couple streets up."

They walked in silence along the narrow but snow-free sidewalks of downtown for a while, holding hands. Veronica was dwarfed ridiculously by Leo's coat, which was, however, nice and warm.

"Are you ever going to tell me what you were doing out there? Don't tell me the clowns scared you."

"It's not that kind of circus, Deputy." Veronica took a deep breath and made herself relax again. "Let's just say, you have really good timing."

Looking up, she could see his smile. "Maybe my luck's changing."

Veronica felt a brief pang of guilt for stealing the Crime Stoppers recording and getting him suspended. But Leo didn't seem to be holding a grudge. Just his breath. Veronica stopped.

Leo looked down at her quizzically when she slipped her hand from his and turned to face him. Even perplexed and turning blue, he was still smiling. Veronica was momentarily distracted from what she'd been about to say.

"Are you like high on something?"

"What?"

It really shouldn't have been cute the way his brow furrowed like that. Veronica slid a hand up his chest and stood on her toes, hiding her smile with his.

Leo's eyelids shivered open when she pulled back from the kiss, eyes as dark as his lashes. "Well. I guess Luck's a lady tonight."

As she sank back onto her (high and spiky) heels, which she could have sworn had been killing her a minute ago, all Veronica could think was, _The boy's never going to stop smiling now_.

 

To Veronica's lasting disappointment, she wasn't there for Richard Grayson's first visit to the Batcave in however many years; since he huffed off and moved to Blüdhaven, probably. On the long, long list of things Bruce did not talk about were _why_ Dick left, why they no longer spoke, and whether or not Dick still did anything besides teach acrobatics.

Terry had called her during patrol last night (she'd been staked out getting a money shot for her parents—and geez, was she sure her _parents_ were old enough to see that?). She'd been resisting the temptation to call Leo, who was on duty anyway and probably getting shot _at_ somewhere else on the Hill. 

Apparently, Dick's stuff had just _showed up_ at Wayne Manor yesterday (and how much stuff, anyway?) in company with an intimidated-looking intern-type person, and followed shortly by Dick himself. This spoke to Veronica of a fairly direct confrontational style. 

Well, if you weren't going to be direct with Bruce, he'd just ignore you until you died of old age. Dick had grown up with him; he had to've developed some methods of dealing with Bruce. _Like putting several parsecs between them?_ Yeah.

Terry didn't seem all that sanguine about a new person hopping around the place. But then, he always gave Veronica the impression she was trespassing in the Cave. He'd been warming up a little, but there was still a definite vibe. She thought of it as the You're-Wearing-My-Sweater vibe, also observable between high school girls, herself and Mama, and Mama and Grandmamma.

No way was Veronica missing act two, though. She pulled down into the garage, which was sunken and covered in an extremely paranoid manner, but also large. Hel _lo_ , new hovercycle. Dick obviously had more fun than Bruce did, or at least his sense of it was more identifiable.

"You _wore_ that? I mean, you really wore that?" Veronica, just entering the Cave proper, hardly needed to see Terry's face to confirm his incredulity.

Dick laughed and reached out to ruffle Terry's hair. Terry ducked and took half a step backwards before he remembered he was Batman and so supposed to have a handle on that sort of reflex. The expression on his face was a mixture of hostility, confusion, and potential violence that Veronica filed away to treasure.

Terry smoothed out his expression when he noticed her and took a tactical step away from Dick. Dick turned immediately.

"你好. Are you supposed to be here?" His tone might be sunny, but his eyes were hard.

"More or less," Terry allowed, grudgingly.

"Thanks, Ter; way to sell it."

Dick Grayson was a lean man with long, iron grey hair and piercing blue eyes a few shades brighter than Bruce's. He looked a lot more like Terry than Bruce, actually: same height, same build; but different faces. He was only a few years older than Grandmamma Lorelai, and he carried them as gracefully. Veronica was reminded that Bruce had still been Batman at the same age.

"You didn't tell me you picked up another stray." Dick said this to Bruce, grinning provocatively. 

Bruce didn't look up from whatever he was doing on the mainframe. "Oh, she's properly claimed."

"I haven't seen this one on the vid-news," Dick probed even less subtly.

"You wanna handle that one, Mister Giggles?"

Bruce shot her an irritated look; Dick snorted.

"If we wanted people to take Terry seriously, once they saw him, we had to keep him visible. Since no one is expecting Veronica, we can be a bit more methodical."

"Besides, we're still working on the suit," Terry put in, sliding into a seat at the console and out of the direct line of fire. 

Dick settled his gaze back on Veronica. "Claimed, you say. Whom by?"

"Are you trying to _flirt_ with me?" Veronica asked incredulously.

"She's Lorelai's granddaughter," Bruce answered, ignoring her.

Dick blinked, then looked back and forth between them. "Lor 的 外孫女, huh? I guess it must not have been—um, after all."

"Mama's pretty tall; we blame Da's genes," Veronica offered slowly, thinking. She could feel her brow furrow.

"And how does Lor feel about this?"

"I, uh, haven't actually told her. Yet."

Dick snorted. "Well, she's apparently Police Commissioner now, so I think she's going to notice eventually."

"And what are _you_ doing here?" Time to redirect this conversation.

"I thought I'd swing by, check on some things. See if I could turn Bruce's latest apprentice into less of an ox."

"Thanks," Terry said dryly.

"Training starts in fifteen minutes. You staying or what?"

 

" _Хуй_."

Veronica collapsed on the mat next to Terry and silently agreed. "I think I'd like to never move again. Is that doable?"

"Ungh," Terry grunted and heaved to his feet. "C'mon; you should eat something."

"Shower first," Veronica decided, wrinkling her nose. "Definitely."

She accepted Terry's proffered hand up, and together they limped to the showers. Veronica was still trying to figure out the etiquette of showering down here as opposed to upstairs in one of the many frankly sumptuous bathrooms in the mansion proper. _Anything you sweat in the Batcave, stays in the Batcave?_ Well, at least the water was hot.

Dick was already in the kitchen, leaning against the counter and eating a sandwich, when they finished. He was holding a plate under the crumbs, and there was a half-empty mug of coffee on the counter next to him. 

"So, the first time I visited the Cave, Grandmamma said something очень странное," Veronica said as she pulled things out of the fridge. "She told Bruce that under no circumstances was he to perform any genetic tests on me. And ever since, I have been wracking my brains for an explanation."

Dick, who had just taken a large bite of sandwich, stopped chewing.

"She refuses to talk about it. Anytime either of us brings it up, Bruce finds something really unpleasant for us to do. Are both of you that scared of Lorelai 外婆?"

"Yes," Dick said around a half-masticated lump of sandwich.

Veronica's scowl of frustration was interrupted as Terry set a plate down in front of her. He gave her a little shrug and reached for the mayonnaise. 

Food accomplished, Terry sat down and pulled something out of his bag.

"What's that, homework?" Veronica asked, settling in with her own sandwich. This gig was making her perpetually hungry.

"College applications." Terry ripped into his sandwich like he wanted to get a bad taste out of his mouth.

Dick winced. "I'm glad Alfred's not here to see this."

"Who's Alfred?" Veronica asked.

"You're not going off-planet, are you?" Dick asked, flicking a glance at Veronica. Terry's replacement? Now, there was a sobering thought.

"Hey, I'm just trying to graduate high school. Bruce is the one who's insisting on all this nonsense. SUGC, Gotham U, North City. Do I really need another day job?"

"Mm," Dick replied noncommittally. 

Terry sighed and abandoned hopes of sympathy.

 

Veronica's own day job awaited, speaking of college and how to get there. On an impulse, she swung by Gotham Mercy to see Lilly. She'd only been by once, since this whole Bat thing started, and it was more than time to bring Lilly up to date on her investigation.

Veronica had, ah, forgot to turn her visitor's pass in the last time she'd been here, which meant she passed security without a hitch this time. The familiar sixth floor nurses' station was empty at the moment, so she went directly to Lilly's room. 

It was as silent as ever, which was why Veronica was surprised to find Duncan Kane standing over his sister's bedside. _Oxcarbazapine. Type Four epilepsy_ , flashed through Veronica's mind, almost drowning out _guy I used to make out with_. 

While Veronica hovered indecisively in the doorway, Duncan looked up and saw her. There was a strange expression on his face.

Well, her own face was probably frozen in a pretty unflattering configuration. Just as Veronica decided to go away and have a long conversation with it, Duncan said, "So you're like a detective now, right?"

"More or less," Veronica answered cautiously. "為什麼?"

"I was thinking you might help me get my DSB back."

"Someone stole your dedicated source box?" Veronica asked, still not relinquishing her post by the door.

"There was a card game the other night, at Logan's."

"Oh, I'm loving this already."

Duncan gave her a sort of annoyed look, which might have been the most expression she'd seen on his face in a year. " _Anyway_ , your new friend Weevil won five grand, except someone stole the money. This is his way of collecting."

Veronica crossed her arms. "And I care why?"

"Old times' sake?" Duncan offered. "I keep a journal on my DSB. For the past, 不知道, 三年? There was a time when you were sort of a feature." He glanced pointedly at Lilly.

"How were you not the one to get your brains beaten out?" 

It hung between them in the stunned silence. Well, she and Duncan had already hurt one another about as much as was possible; it wasn't like anything she said could make it any _worse_ —

Duncan burst out laughing. He looked up at Veronica's face, which was probably doing even more interesting things than it had been at the beginning of this conversation, and doubled over again.

"I'm sorry," he gasped. "I can—I can just hear Lilly saying—"

Veronica bit her lip and closed her eyes, feeling the smile creep up on her. "Yeah. You know what she'd say if she found out you kept a _diary?_ "

"Journal, please," Duncan sniggered. "It's more dignified."

"Please tell me you at least had it code-locked."

Duncan blinked at her in the way that used to get him either Lilly's hand or a pillow in his face. Veronica sighed.

"Fine; but I'm not doing this for you; I'm doing this for her."

Duncan smiled a little. "Yeah."

 

The facts were these: Logan Echolls had hosted a game of Six Card Warhoon two nights ago in the Echolls family pool house. In attendance had been Weevil, Duncan, fellow Aught-Niner Sean Friedrich, holo-vid star Connor Larkin, and Logan himself. 

The buy-in had been a thousand plat. Weevil had predictably spanked them all, but the money wasn't in the cashbox when the time came to settle up. Weevil, understandably upset by this turn of events, had decided to settle up via the barter method. 

Veronica was mostly on Weevil's side for this, except the more she thought of it, the less enthusiastic she became about anyone reading anything Duncan might have written about her. She would rather dance naked with six Jokerz on top of the Gotham Square Clocktower, basically. 

Which was an appropriate state of mind to be in, considering the fact that she was about to have a conversation with Logan Echolls. But first, she'd give things a chance to be easy.

Veronica's hand-held went off just as she was reaching for it. "Not who I was looking for, but you'll do for now."

"Thanks," Terry said.

"I don't suppose all you tall, strapping men will let me weasel my way out of training tomorrow."

Terry snorted. "Not likely. Why, got a hot date?"

"A mystery, actually."

"Oh?"

"Nothing of interest to the 'Verse's Greatest Detective; but I've got a small personal stake in the outcome."

"Nothing to do with a certain Deputy Sheriff, then?" Terry asked slyly.

"Why, did you want to run off his record for me?" Veronica rubbed her eyes. "Forget I said that. You know, you're almost as bad as Bruce."

"Thank you." 

Veronica opened her mouth, then closed it again. "You patrolling right now?"

"Not at this second."

"So I guess you're the one with the hot date. Don't let me keep you."

" _Veronic_ —"

_Blip_. 

All right, and now it was time to tell the leader of a 'cycle gang why he should give the cheating rich boys back their stuff.

 

"Did _you_ do that to him?"

Dick Grayson was looking back and forth between Veronica and Terry, who had just come back from a mid-morning armed robbery call and was in process of stripping out of the Batsuit. The scratches down his back and those interestingly finger-shaped bruises stood out in what Veronica's photographer's eye noticed was superior contrast on his fish-belly pale skin.

The expression on Dick's face was either respect or horror, and Veronica remembered that he'd used to date her _grandmamma_. She almost managed to stifle a snigger. 

Terry stepped the rest of the way out of the Batsuit, defying further comment. Veronica did manage to swallow her laughter then, because Nikolai's weren't the only bruises he was wearing.

"Not guilty," she averred. 

Dick shook his head. "Which of us are you studying up to be, anyway, kid?"

It was Terry's turn to choke. Bruce just looked exceedingly dry.

"謝謝," Terry said, when they were cooling down from another one of Dick's long sessions.

"Don't mention it. Anybody could see that my hands aren't big enough, anyway." _Ooh, he blushes_.

Terry cleared his throat. "How's your case coming?"

"不錯. You want I should get you Connor Larkin's autograph?"

"Like the vid-star Connor Larkin? How'd you manage that?"

"Logan's getting me in to see him." Veronica grunted and shifted stretches.

"Don't you two hate each other?"

"Yep."

In fact, the meeting with Logan had been even less fun than the meeting with Weevil. Although at least she hadn't had to be polite. It had gone something like this:

_Veronica: I have a valid reason to be here._

_Logan: I am incredibly unhelpful. And also, still an enormous ass-hat._

_Veronica: Then I'll ask to use your bathroom so I can snoop around._

_Logan: Did I mention I was an ass-hat?_

_Veronica: There is an enormously creepy holo-vid setup in the bedroom. But, inconveniently, not in the rec room._

_Logan: I am far more interested in that than is healthy.請你 go bother someone else so I can find a girl to fuck under the concert cameras._

Veronica sighed. "Three down, two to go, anyway."

 

It was a good thing vid-stars got to work early, because these all day training sessions with Bruce and Dick were serious business. Her saving grace was that she was still getting some sleep at night, while Bat Mansion didn't really get it in gear until ten or eleven. 

According to Connor, there had been a lot more opportunities from someone to grab the cash when everyone else was distracted than the other witnesses had maintained. This was less than helpful, but probably more in line with this thing she liked to call 'reality'.

This left Sean Friedrich. A mouth like that would be wasted on a straight boy, Veronica couldn't help but think. But if he ever wanted to make a living at prostitution, he'd have to be a mite more careful about what came out of it.

Well, at this point she ought to have all the pieces; time to sit down somewhere and put them all together.

That was what Veronica was doing when her father walked into the office. She actually _had_ had business at the Echolls' house the other day: someone was stalking Logan's da. Veronica would have been more surprised if Aaron Echolls weren't a holo-vid star more famous than Connor, though twice his age.

"Hey. Haven't seen much of you lately," Da said, bending over to scratch Backup's ears. "Keeping busy?"

"New case." Veronica killed her holo-display. "You find out who's carving Aaron Echoll's face on pumpkins?"

"Not yet, but I'm working on it. You gonna have some time for your poor old parents this Yuletide?"

"I'll try to pencil you in around the Governor's ball," Veronica said, smiling mysteriously.

Da laughed. "Okay. Well, when you get back, your Mama's decided I'm going to cook 佛跳牆. And then presents in the morning, and Yule Dinner with the grandparents."

"Yule Dinner without 曾祖母的 apple tarts? How will Lorelai survive?"

"I don't know, but if you get her anything to do with apples, you're on your own."

"I am shocked at your lack of faith in me," Veronica told him primly.

Da didn't look like he was buying it. Veronica brought up the Mars Investigations calendar and started ostentatiously looking for other places he should be right now.

"Hey, so when do we get to meet this new boyfriend of yours?" he asked, not taking either hint. 

"Oh, you already know him," Veronica said, trying for casual. "Leo D'Amato. Handsome fellow; saved your life once."

"As I recall, the good deputy is a sight older than yourself."

Veronica rolled her eyes. "He's _twenty_ , Da."

"And you were seventeen the last time I checked."

"He _saved your life_ , Da. I hardly think he's going to jump out of the bushes at me."

"There are people jumping out of bushes?" 

Which was Mama popping through the door and wrapping her arms around Da's waist. She rested her chin on Da's shoulder and looked at her progeny expectantly, eyes bright and cheeks rosy from the cold.

"Just my new boyfriend. He's very spontaneous."

"He's twenty," Da clarified.

"He carries a laser gun," Veronica added enticingly.

"He does?" Mama did not look reassured.

"He's a Deputy Sheriff," Veronica said in her normal voice. "I've run a background check on him and everything!"

"I'm not sure whether to be relieved or concerned," Da said to Mama.

"I'm pretty sure Lorelai ran background checks on all my boyfriends."

Da shook his head. "I've fallen in with strange, strange people."

_You don't know the half of it_ , Veronica assiduously did not say.

"Why don't you bring him to dinner sometime?"

"Sometime soon," Da interrupted.

"We promise we won't embarrass you," Mama added. 

"Согласна, согласна." Veronica succumbed to the parental onslaught. "But after the holidays, okay? He doesn't have a lot of free time until then anyway." And she had a case to wind up, and possibly five thousand plat to win.

 

The next morning, it was two days before Yule and a body washed up on the shores of the North Bay. It had yet to be identified, although it was plain enough who killed him. Fingers cut off below the first knuckle, teeth pulled. Any ID would have to come from either personal recognition or DNA testing, unless he had tattoos that had been recorded and could do his talking for him.

"At least that's one group of psychos up on the Heights and not the Hill," Leo said. 

Veronica had come up the Hill to meet him for lunch at the precinct cop hangout, where the food was indifferent but cheap. "What, you'd rather deal with the Fitzpatricks чем с Ворами?"

"Абсолютно. Hey, so you know who stole the money?"

"Yep."

"Well, who is it?"

"Why, Deputy Leo, that _would_ be telling." 

Veronica batted her eyelashes. Leo gave her a Look. 

"But seriously, folks. If I tell you, you might feel obliged to arrest somebody, and that would spoil my brilliant plan."

"Which is...?"

"I waved Bachelors One through Five this morning to propose a rematch, this time on neutral ground. The Governor's Yuletide gala." 

Leo barked a laugh, "Unbelievable."

"Logan will buy me in, and I'll take the place of the guilty party," Veronica finished, unswayed.

"And they all agreed to this? Of course, because..."

Veronica couldn't help the pleased grin that plastered itself across her face. "Because anyone who didn't was obviously guilty, right. And, of course, a _girl_ could never beat them at cards."

Leo was snickering outright now. "If you play your cards right, maybe it'll be _you_ taking _me_ to dinner, next time."

"Hey, leave the puns to the cheesy supervillains." 

 

Terry was quiet the next day, but Veronica didn't think it was just because the most famous holo-vid star in the system had got stabbed on his watch. Well, he'd had plenty of opportunities to come clean with her about Nikolai. Let him stew in his own angst.

It was actually Bruce who floated the question, watching Veronica hustle downstairs from the attic with a dress over her shoulder:

"Big plans tonight?"

Veronica flashed him a grin she'd learned from her grandmamma. "Gotta look the part. Big party tonight; maybe I'll see you there."

She and Mama made positively indecent noises over dinner, which never failed to make Da cringe, blush, and brag. Veronica fought off an encroaching food coma to put on her game face.

Mama had taught her how to put on makeup and do her hair, but it was Lilly Veronica thought of as she stood in front of the mirror. Mama taught her how to do it nice; Lilly taught her how to dial it up. 

She would have loved the stas-closet full of Lorelai's old clothes. _Red, red red_ , she'd repeated to Veronica, seeing something when she looked at Veronica that Veronica hadn't been able to see in the mirror. 

The dress was tea-length, black with blue panels; and despite showing off quite a lot of her back, didn't manage to reveal any of Veronica's training bruises. She was developing an appreciation of why Bruce had cultivated a reputation as a playboy.

She made her eyes dramatic, like Lilly had always begged her to, driven to conniptions by Veronica's quiet tastes. Her lipstick was darker than red, but still made her lightly powdered skin look pale as snow. Veronica checked her hair (loose, in short curls) one last time and slipped on a pair of high-heeled black half-boots.

The looks Mama and Da gave her when she came out of her room dressed for the evening were almost exactly the same as the one she'd gotten from Terry after her parting remark. Veronica pulled on her long woollen coat and decided that once again silence was her best course.

"親愛的, I thought you were kidding about the ball."

"Don't worry; my slippers aren't made of glass, and I won't get into any pumpkins," Veronica reassured them.

It was the planetary governor's party and not the one Logan's parents threw every year (given Logan's father had been stabbed with a carving knife at that party last night, Veronica felt she had made the right decision), and so Veronica had had to resort to the slightly dubious means to gain entry, i.e. sneaking around the back. 

This year, it was being held at Town Hall and not River Hall, with its unfortunate associations of last spring. This was actually good news, as the old Town Hall was easier to sneak into and had a lot of odd corners and out-of-the-way rooms could be turned into an impromptu card salon. 

Weevil, who was waiting on her ingenuity to get him inside, raised his eyebrows when he saw her.

"You know, you clean up pretty good."

"Back at you, Weevil. I didn't realise you _owned_ pants weren't made of denim or leather."

"Shall we?" Weevil offered her his arm.

Veronica took it. "This way."

It was still largely due to Bruce's mainframe and its staggering collection of hacked networks (i.e., cheating) that Veronica knew where the back doors and holes in tonight's security were. Weevil actually looked more impressed when she picked the door lock than when he'd seen her dress, which was one of the few Grandmamma had left behind at the Manor that actually fit her. Once they were inside, they wouldn't stand out too much.

"Do you even know where you're going?" Weevil asked her after about the sixth turn. 

"Keep your pants on," Veronica told him absently, holding off on pulling out the floor plan she'd printed back in the Batcave. They should be just about there...

Veronica should not have been surprised to find a couple trays of canapés, obviously stolen from the party, perched hazardously on extra chairs in the small conference room they had co-opted. There was also a fairly slapdash selection of booze, probably also liberated at random from obliging servers and/or directly from the barback.

Logan, standing and ostentatiously counting someone's money, noticed her looking around. "See anything you like? Or maybe something from the _back_."

"Ha, ha." Veronica dropped Weevil's arm and stepped around both of them. Time for the show.

As she jumped from suspect to suspect, Veronica could feel all their eyes on her. She had to keep up the pace, the sharp changes in direction or this group of teenaged knuckleheads would regain their balance and start trying to argue with her. 

Logan was obviously still ready to tell her to fuck off the second she gave him an excuse. Duncan's expression was less reserved, but still harder to read; and Veronica wondered if _he_ knew it was probable he was the one who'd put Lilly in that hospital bed. 

Weevil was just sitting back, letting himself be entertained, probably because he realised the truth: if she thought _he'd_ stolen his own money, she would have beat it out of him in private and not drag him here to be publicly humiliated, ruining their business relationship in the process. Not Weevil's style, anyway.

Veronica had to admit, Sean put up a good front, although she could see the nervousness building as she ticked down the list toward him. Connor was more obviously uncomfortable. Understandable: he didn't know her at all, and even a false accusation could do damage to his career.

He should have more faith. Veronica circled around behind her target and nailed him with all the precision of an entomologist pinning a bug to a board. Sure, he lived in possibly the biggest house on the island; but he was only a back-door Aught-Niner, confined to the servants' wing. Sean's panicked looks, casting about for support, met with no sympathy: stonewall from Connor; disappointment turned into a complete shut-off from Duncan, which was pure Lilly; and was that _hurt_ from Logan?

Weevil was almost more sinister than usual in that long-sleeved dress shirt that covered his tattoos. Gave you nothing to look at but the expression on his face. 

But what was even more gratifying than Sean's increasingly anxious protestations of _I can pay you! I can pay you!_ was the growing consternation in the room as the homeboys realised she was going to be playing Six Card Warhoon with them all evening. Poor little sheep.

Veronica was up nicely by the time they broke to re-stock on canapés. Almost the first person she saw was Grandmamma Lorelai, who raised an eyebrow at her over a glass of what Veronica assumed was actual водкa, not water like Duncan had had in his bottle. Veronica smiled back weakly, wondering which would be worse: Lorelai recognising her dress, or the gang leader standing next to her.

"Hey, I think I'm gonna make myself scarce. That's the Police Commissioner over there looking this way," Weevil said in a low voice, shifting uncomfortably. 

"Ничего," Veronica said distantly, scanning the crowd.

"Oh, 好的. Because I just blend in so well. Серьёзно. Где Weevil?"

"Grandmamma's not wondering why _you're_ here; she's wondering why _I'm_ here."

"你的 _外婆_?" Weevil stared at her. "You really are connected, V."

The man who crossed Veronica's line of sight wasn't the one she'd been looking for, but why waste an opportunity? And, look, he was alone and leaving the room. 

"Can you hold these for a minute? And tell the boys to deal me out of the next few hands."

"They'll be ecstatic."

Veronica caught up with Jake Kane along an empty hallway, just entering one of the Hall's many small, dark rooms. This one might have been an office at one point. Now it boasted nothing but a few stacked chairs and a window whose heavy drapes were pulled back to let in the light from two of Gotham's three moons.

Veronica slipped in after him and pulled the door closed. Jake turned around and took a step back, then froze. "你好, Veronica."

"I've got a question for you." Jake's face was impossible to read with the light from the window behind him, but Veronica was unwilling to relinquish her control of the door. "Do you make a habit of paying crime syndicates to take pictures of high school students and draw bull's-eyes over their faces? Or am I special?"

"I don't—"

"Один из Воров took pictures of me. Surveillance pictures. Then drew a target over my face and sent them to my mother, because she was writing an article that would've exposed the fact that Abel Koontz has been set up."

"You're not making any sense," Jake said, storming over to the window.

"Why? Why would the Воры do that? Why did Koontz confess?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Jake told the window hotly.

"Why would one of Semyon's lieutenants call in the tip in the first place? Unless you paid him to."

"I didn't!" Jake shouted, finally spinning to face her as if stung. Veronica was abruptly glad of the aching in her muscles, because at least now she knew what to do if he came after her, the way he might have come after Lilly. Oh, Jake Kane had always seemed like the nicer of the Lilly's parents, but you didn't build a company to rival Wayne-Powers without a killer instinct. And Lilly—if Lilly knew one thing, it was how to push the limits.

"Why would the Воры do that, anonymously, and not collect the reward, unless they were already getting paid?"

"They _were_ getting paid!" 

Jake stopped still, his breathing audible. Veronica swore she could see his silhouette trembling. He put a hand to his face.

"Why will you people not believe that I didn't beat my daughter?" he asked quietly.

"If you didn't do anything wrong, why the cover-up? Воры don't do favours out of the goodness of their hearts."

"I had nothing to do with the attack. I had nothing to do with Abel Koontz's confession." Jake's voice was toneless, drained. All the tension was abruptly gone from his body. 

"I don't believe you."

 

After that spectacularly unproductive meeting, Veronica decided that maybe she could use a drink after all. 

"Enjoying the party?" 

Veronica jumped half out of her skin and glared at Terry, who was apparently at her elbow now. She'd been watching Jake whisk his wife and son off in a lather of impatience and lack of explanation.

"You know how it is: work just insists on following you."

"Don't I know it." Terry's eyes were also fixed across the room, not on Bruce, but the cool, surprisingly present form of Nikolai Luzhin.

"C'mon," he decided abruptly. "Let's get out of here."

They ended up in another old office or conference chamber that let out onto a long balcony. There were no chairs, but a stout table. Shadow mahogany, she thought. Now that Shadow had been razed, it was probably worth a fortune.

Terry hopped up onto the table, facing the tall row of windows, and pulled a small bottle and two delicate cups, about the size of large coins, out of his suit jacket. You couldn't see the moons from this direction, but purpling clouds had drifted over the city anyway, blocking even that faint orange light. There was snow sifting down from them.

"He wouldn't tell me anything," Terry said after a while.

Veronica stilled her kicking heels and waited.

"It's— It was _important_ , and he kept brushing me off. I was so mad at him, because he wouldn't let me help. Wouldn't let me get involved." Terry laughed hollowly. They were not, Veronica realised abruptly, talking about Bruce. "Now I guess I know why."

"That fellow washed up on the North Bay yesterday. He was the one behind the assassination attempts." On Nikolai. You'd think everything about Terry would swirl back to Bruce, and most of it did; but all the rest seemed to circle around Nikolai.

"It was Sasha. Alogrin. He was working with the 堂." Terry tilted his second cup of sake.

"He was trying to protect you. Keep you out of it." What a peculiar thing to grasp.

"Yeah." 

"Like you were trying to protect me."

Terry's head whipped up at that.

"You didn't want me involved; neither of you did. And it wasn't to protect you; two of us out there is going to be a lot more solid than just you on your valiant lonesome. It was to protect me."

"Fine; so?"

"So stop feeling guilty about it, you 狗肏的渾蛋. I made my own choice!"

Terry stopped playing with his sake and drank it. "Choice I gave you weren't no choice; not for the likes of us, and I knew it."

"I am so sick and tired of people trying to protect me. It never works, anyway. I'd rather be able to take care of myself."

Veronica wasn't sure why she said it, except Terry wasn't her father or brother or boyfriend; and whatever was actually going on between him and Nikolai, it was dark as well as complicated. She needed to start the story somewhere, and she was going to tell it now.

"We didn't really know each other, before." Veronica's gesture with her own empty cup encompassed all of the Gotham night. "You were Dana's boyfriend, and I was, what?"

"Until last year, you were that nice girl who hung out with Lilly Kane." Terry refilled their cups.

Veronica didn't know whether alcohol would make this easier or harder. She hadn't been drunk since that night, either.

"You know when that changed, Terry?" Veronica was staring out at the snow now, and the bare trees in Olderoy Park across the road. "It wasn't when someone hit Lilly in the head with an ashtray.

"At the end of last year, Shelly Pomroy had a party. I went because—I don't know. Because I wanted to show them my anger the same way they showed me theirs." So far, she was handling this better than she'd expected; her voice was barely cracking at all. "I blacked out after one drink; there had to've been something in it. And I woke up the next morning in one of the guest rooms, missing my underwear."

She swallowed the sake at last, but neither of them moved to pour more.

"And you never told anyone?" 

Veronica's lip curled in black smile. "Sheriff Lamb laughed me out of his office."

"I was at that party," Terry said. "I saw you there."

More silence. 

"It's not—Nikolai and I. He's an infiltrator. Recruited by the Federal Marshalls."

"So his record—"

"Is real," Terry said flatly. "But he took down Semyon; and if we do this right, we'll bag more than just the Воров." 

"Wait, wait. Does he know—?"

Terry rolled his cup between his palms, watching attentively as it rotated. "Last spring, just after all those kids were abducted, after I made a mess of that Sting, I pulled an information raid on the Воров. On my way out, I ran straight into a fire fight between Nikolai and some spacers. It was in a warehouse by the docks, and we ended up in the bay. Under the bay, actually. I got hit on the head, and Nikolai dragged me to one of those old tunnels under that part of the city. Got me breathing again. I—turned the suit's light on; I wasn't thinking straight—I couldn't _see_ —"

A heavy exhalation, and when Terry started up again, his voice was back under control. "The next night was—Drusilla—they found the kids that day. Drusilla had turned them all, and sent them back to turn their families. I think her plan was to march into the Police Banquet, with all those vid cameras, and broadcast the slaughter. Cause a mass panic.

"Bruce and I jammed the signals, cut the lights soon's we could. I—er—held them off long enough for Gilmore and Belker to get everyone out and reinforcements to show up."

Veronica remembered Grace's face disintegrating and said nothing. For a while, it seemed like he wasn't going to say anything more, either. Then:

"But before all of that, see, in the information I got from the Воров, there was this slave boat going out to Pará, and they were just kids too, and I wasn't—"

Veronica held her breath until Terry started breathing again, too.

"I wasn't going to let it happen. So I went to the damn club because he knew my face; I knew if I got close enough, he'd spot me. And then he'd tell me what I needed to know, and I could stop it." Another sip of sake. "And that's how—this—all got started."

The snow was falling thickly now, piling up on the windowsills and the balcony railing. The only light was from light pollution and the quaint faux-gas lanterns that lined Old Town's cobbled streets.

"There's a little Batcave in here, you know," Terry told her. "Down in part of the basement. Bruce's got them all over the city, little hideouts and resupply stations."

Veronica made a decision. "How much money do you have on you?"

"Ten thousand plat. I'm carrying it for Bruce; he still plays the eccentric billionaire, and he likes to be prepared."

"來." Veronica lowered herself back to the floor. She was pleased to find herself still steady on her heels.

"Куда?"

"Hy, I just saw Duncan get dragged away by his Da because of something I said, so our card game's a man down. Whaddaya say? Feeling lucky?"

 

**Interlude (Weevil)**

The deck had gone around once before Veronica found them again. Girl seemed a little ditzy, sometimes. Or maybe she was just overworked. 

It was just him and Logan and the vid-star for a while there, anyway. Mommy and daddy had apparently decided it was past Duncan's bedtime, so they'd cashed him out and gone on with just the three of them.

Weevil was actually a little relieved when the girl came back. Logan might be a mouthy little bitch, but at least he'd been a halfway decent card player last time. It had been starting to get boring, tonight.

Well, it certainly wasn't that anymore. Veronica comes _clack_ ing in here with Terry McGinnis, of all people, on her heels, saying she's found them a fifth man, and expects them to nod along like a flock of koala-sheep? All Weevil knew was that she hadn't done any of them any favours, bringing McGinnis in. Weevil remembered him dimly as kind of a hot-head, but he had some damn poker-face. 

"You're not smart enough to be counting cards, are you?" Weevil asked him, throwing his down.

"I don't know what _you're_ complaining about; you're still up four hundred," said Connor glumly, fiddling with his last four or five chips.

"Not for long," McGinnis said with a dangerous little smile. 

"Big talk." Logan cut the deck and handed it back to Veronica. "I promise, next time I'll hire a professional dealer. I hear they take bribes and everything; it'll be just like a real casino."

"Without the showgirls?" Veronica made a moue of disappointment. 

"Just deal already."

"I don't know, you're awfully eager to lose your money."

"Hey," Logan said, peeking at his cards. "I may have bought you into this game, but I'll beat you out of it."

"好啊, prove it to me. First bet's to you."

Weevil had actually been kind of surprised they hadn't called this whole thing off on account of Logan's father getting skewered. If Logan hadn't always been this much of a 猴子的屁股, he might almost feel bad for him. But really; rich holo-vid stars thought they could tup the help and not have it come back to bite them. Weevil kinda hoped Echolls 太太 sued his ass across the system.

Logan confirmed everyone's suspicions about his state of distraction, or maybe that was inebriation, by washing out even before Connor did. This left Weevil, Veronica, and her—what, friend? 

Looking back and forth between McGinnis and Veronica, Weevil did start to feel himself bizarrely outnumbered. Veronica did not in his experience pick up deadbeats. But Veronica had also been more or less responsible for that pretty spectacular scene a few months back in which McGinnis' last girlfriend had dumped him.

Himself, Weevil had been worried about McGinnis holding a grudge. Word had it the guy ran with a pretty heavy crowd. But if he was going to be hanging around Veronica, maybe a little more investigation was in order. That was the thing now, right?

Yeah, this definitely needed looking into, Weevil thought, watching the last of his chips get swept across the table. He rolled his head on his chairback and looked at Veronica, who was dealing again, wondering what the chances were of her spilling anything useful about her new pal. _Pretty slim_.

Connor was still watching the game, too, even though he could probably be out at that fancy party finding a chick to bang tonight. Maybe he thought he was going to bang Veronica. The way she handled those cards _was_ pretty hot. 

Logan was just pouring expensive (and it _was_ good stuff; probably worth the buy-in to get at it) booze down his throat and apparently becoming more liquid the more he drank, since he was now sort of puddled on the floor. But Weevil kind of thought Connor was hanging around for the same reason he was.

And this was the reason here. McGinnis was up, but he'd just gone all-in. Both of them were still smiling, except it looked less like smiling than a knife fight. He hadn't felt this much tension in the air since they threw down with the Jokerz last month, and Batman had interrupted that. Well, not this time. This time, he was getting him some catharsis. It was almost enough that the poor little rich boys had been hustled, but no; he really wanted—

Veronica slid her chips onto the pile. Truth time. The cards were down. McGinnis groaned.

"Hey, kids. Party's breaking up," some old guy ducked into the room and out again to tell them.

Logan asked, "Am I drunk, or was that Dick Grayson?"

 

**Part Six (Terry)**

"Didn't I give you ten thousand?" Bruce asked when Terry returned his cash later than night.

Terry, who was finishing off a glass of water, just shrugged. "I learned a valuable lesson, though."

"Oh?"

"The rookie's a card shark."

Dick snickered. "Are you sober enough to patrol?"

"Yeah. They probably had to scrape the Echolls kid off the floor before they poured him into a cab, though."

"You crazy kids."

"Hey, at least no one got stabbed tonight."

Bruce was giving them both a Look.

"Yeah, yeah; I know. Go patrol."

 

Terry did actually get to bed before dawn that night, not that it gave him nearly enough preparation for Matt pouncing on him at eight in the morning and prying him out of bed. _Oh, well. No use fighting it._

He had coffee brewed by the time Mama came out of the bathroom and offered her a cup before she could comment on the one in his hand. Instead, she smiled and kissed his cheek.

"С святками," she said.

"С святками," he replied. 

"快一點兒!" Matt urged them. "Let's check the tree!"

Too old to believe in Деда Мороза, Matt still got pretty excited about Yule. Terry lay around the apartment in his new slippers, watching him run around with his action figures freshly pried from the machiavellian packaging while Mama resisted the urge to clean up. She maintained that her favourite Yule gift had been Terry sending in his college applications yesterday. Terry felt almost normal.

It wasn't his best skill, but Terry did the cooking today. Matt was playing with Batman and the new auto-fluorescent Blight figures, because of course that had been on the news this morning. It was sort of weird watching you little brother play with an action figure of yourself, but Terry figured he was entitled to his childhood. He sort of winced when Matt complained about there not being any Pretender toys available, since no one knew what the Pretender looked like. They'd patched a facial-recognition alarm into all the city's hoverdrones using the image from Terry's vid-link, but so far no hits.

It was—well, not a quiet week, but there were no vampires, only one more visit from Blight, and no homicidal vigilantes at all. Dick kept running them into the ground until Terry woke up feeling the jerk of hooking the uneven bars all down his arms, like he'd used to dream about falling off cliffs, when he _had_ been a normal person. 

They even finished the initial programming on Veronica's prototype Batgirl suit, and with it, the first real fitting.

"Oooh," Veronica said, wiggling her toes appreciatively inside the trial grav-boots. "Where did you get these _insoles_? I need, like, twenty sets of these. 天啊."

Terry, already amused, didn't even try to mask his snickering.

"You get to laugh when you've spent a day tracking down criminals in women's footwear." Veronica made a gesture with her fingers, estimating the height of a heel, or the size of Terry's brain, or maybe of some other part of his anatomy.

Terry winced and caught it too late. The look Veronica gave him was frankly appraising, which looked really weird through the half-finished cowl. "This story I've got to hear."

"Do not mock the guy in control of the power amplitude into the AG units of the boots you're wearing."

"I'm just saying, I got the other one out of you."

"You have anything to trade for it?"

Veronica's eyes narrowed. "I could _not_ tell Lorelai how I was wearing her dress at the Governor's Yule Ball."

"She's asking about that, is she?"

"She was giving me the You're-Wearing-My-Sweater vibe all through dinner on Yule."

"Huh?"

"Never mind. I'm holding onto the thing; are you going to light these bad-boys up or what?"

Terry did, while Bruce monitored everything. Dick was off with his (Terry couldn't help but thinking, sort of neglected) troupe, prepping them for the big New Year's Eve performance. It was sort of weird that, because of Gotham's particular rotation, Yule at midwinter fell so close to the end of the Galactic calendar year. 

Veronica pulled off her cowl at the end of testing with obvious relief, rubbing at her eyes. This suit came off in pieces, and it took her a little while to find the seams and peel out of it.

"The HUD's pretty intense at first," Terry told her. "You'll get used to it."

"Yeah; I think the resolution on the visor needs some fine-tuning, too."

Veronica rubbed her bare arms and scratched at her half-sweaty hair. Terry knew that feeling, oh yeah. He ran a hand through his own in sense-sympathy. 

"Hit the showers," Bruce told her. "And you, hit the streets."

Sighing, Terry stood up and stretched, watching as Veronica laid the Batgirl suit out on a table and headed for the showers, dressed only in her underwear. It probably said something about him that what he noticed most was the way her musculature was developing and not her ass.

Patrol went something like normal that night, too. It wasn't until the next morning that the news caught up with him.

They'd found an unanticipated body at the morgue. One of the coroners, tagged as DOA. Except there had been a red plastic flimsy on an instrument tray next to the body, under the bloody instruments, and some of the skin had been removed on her chest. The raw, red silhouette of a bat.

That, really, would have been bad enough, without the tell-tale Y-cut visible in the crime scene holograms. 

Terry was reading the police reports over Bruce's shoulder, too wound up to sit. _Doctor Lizbet Drake, Chief Coroner?_

"That doesn't bode well," he muttered. "What's this on the toxicology; phenotripticol?"

"It's used on violent psych patients, to make them docile. In stronger doses, it causes paralysis without loss of consciousness."

_Can I please not think about this anymore?_ "He cut into her while she was _awake_?"

"The autopsy suggests she didn't survive very long into the—vivisection. But whatever time she had left wouldn't have been very pleasant."

"No kidding."

"I've got a message for you," Veronica said, startling Terry, who hadn't even realised she was there.

Terry glared at Bruce, who seemed not in the least surprised, and tried to get his breathing under control.

"Что?"

"It's from Lorelai 外婆."

Just what his day had been missing. "What does she want now?"

"To see you. She's upstairs."

Terry tried to exchange a surprised glance with Bruce, but was foiled by Bruce's uncooperatively stern expression. Yeah, well.

When Terry reached the study, he found Gilmore there all right, ever-present cup of coffee in hand, scratching Ace behind the ears like her was a puppy and not an attack dog. Terry gave him a disgusted look.

"Commissioner," he greeted her carefully.

"Oh, hey, Terry. Egg on any new serial killers lately?"

"Hey, I was the one got that bomb out of the hotel, in case you don't remember. Not to mention rescuing that reporter. I don't have any more control over this guy than you do."

"I beg to disagree."

"What's that supposed to mean? And what's you problem, anyway?"

"You are, _Batman_ ," Gilmore snapped. "The second he carved that bat logo out of her chest, that's when you started making my job harder. I want this guy off the streets if I have to unchain Belker from his desk and let him _sniff_ the сволочь out."

She thrust a folder at him. "It's completely unresponsive to anything we do. You get two hours; then Veronica takes it back to me, along with all the information you get out of it. 懂嗎?"

Terry took the folder ungraciously, mouth coming open to vent some of his anger.

"Well, fancy meeting you here."

Since he never dropped her gaze, Terry saw very clearly the play of reaction over Gilmore's face. Her eyes widened, mouth softening, then pursing into a stiff line.

"Dick. Joining in the effort to corrupt the next generation?"

"Maybe I'm trying to be a gentler influence," Dick replied, stepping further into the room.

"Have you told Veronica to take up—pottery," Gilmore spluttered, "and go to medical school?"

"No."

"Then shut the hell up!"

Dick smiled, then glanced over at where Terry stood watching them. "Why don't you take that downstairs, kid?"

Gilmore turned to glare at this forgotten irritant.

"Two. Hours," she reminded him in a clipped voice, then spun on her heel and stalked out. "And if you contaminate that evidence, I'm hauling your ass in!"

"Bad break-up?" Terry asked, momentarily distracted from the 糞堆 that was his day. 

"Don't you have something better to be doing?"

Dick brushed past him on his way to the hidden staircase.

" _Better_ might be a bit of an overstatement," Terry muttered, swinging around to follow.

Better, it turned out, was a massive overstatement. It was, as far as Terry was concerned, one hundred per cent full of creepiness that the flimsy came to life with one touch of the Batsuit's glove.

Later, they found the evidence, line by damningly impeccable line, of Doctor Drake's crime. But what they saw first was the message.

_"Hello, Batman. We need to talk. Meet me at midnight in Sniper Alley, and I'll tell you everything you want to know. And don't bother trying to analyse this missive; it's deleting itself even as you watch. Don't keep me waiting."_

Sure enough, the holo-message winked out in a pixelated scramble, replaced by lines of text blooming across the red electro-plastic. It was only in Terry's mind that a pair of dark eyes lingered, boring into him. _He knows I've seen his face._

"Well, that's scary and twisted," Veronica said over Wayne's other shoulder. "You're going to check it out, right?"

"How about we put _you_ in the suit. Then _you_ can go alone into the middle of the Narrows to talk with the psycho-obsessive lunatic."

"好的," Veronica agreed brightly.

Terry scowled at her.

"Children," Bruce interrupted. "We have an hour before the evidence has to be returned. We'll discuss strategy later."

 

It hadn't really been much of a debate. Trap or not, this was an opportunity to take the Pretender down. 

The Narrows always seemed colder than anywhere else in Gotham, even in the suit. Terry turned on his camouflage before going in. The cops only went into the Narrows in force, when they went at all. Which wasn't often, considering they were technically in Old Town.

The Narrows was in reality two strips, one on Balboa Island and the other on the mainland, where the back side of the island bent in closest to the back side of Old Town. A half-dozen bridges, hardly safe for vehicles to cross, connected the two halves, facilitating the crossing of jurisdictional boundaries and obfuscation of justice.

Sniper Alley was actually on the Hill. Its denizens were invariably well-armed and hostile to the agents of law enforcement. The line of tall, condemned brick buildings that lined it provided excellent vantage while a tangle of dilapidated fire escapes made it possible to slip from building to building without being seen from the street.

The denizens of Sniper Alley, even the ones with pulses and human orthodonture, would probably be more apt to blow his ass away than throw Batman a parade. This was definitely not his home court.

Terry wasn't very eager to drop camouflage, but here was there, and it was almost midnight. The message hadn't said _where_ in Sniper Alley. How was he supposed to—

_Oh, now that's_ really _pushing it_ , Terry thought, eyes fixed unhappily on the spotlight in the clouds, Bruce's stylised damn bat in the middle of it, just like in all the vid-dramas. 

There was a man standing next to the spotlight on one of the tarpaper roofs. He was tall, and his face in the white light was unmistakeable. 

Terry held a breath for his self-control after he landed and turned off the camo.

"I'm here," he said flatly, behind the Pretender, still in shadows. 

The Pretender turned around to face him. "Hello. Nice night, isn't it?"

"What do you want?"

"For now? Just to talk. A little birdy told me you were the one ruining my plans. So I did some digging. And when I did, I just couldn't believe it."

"You said you'd answer questions."

"And so I shall." The Pretender's tone was as light as the smile, but his eyes... "I have nothing to hide from you."

"How about from the police?"

"Please. The police are a joke. If the police were effective, would you be standing here in an amateur shooting gallery in the middle of fifteen square blocks of condemned buildings, wearing that particularly dyspeptic mask?"

"And you think you can do better?"

"You don't?" The smile stretched briefly to a grin. "But you see, I already have. In the short time I've been in this system, I've removed a dozen murderers and worse. Men and women who didn't understand the magnitude of the human suffering they created."

"What gives you the right?" It came out as a growl.

The Pretender laughed, flung his arms wide across Gotham's midnight skyline. "Parents taken from their children. Husbands from their wives. Babes, from their families. Dreams destroyed, lives shattered. What gives me the _right?_ What gives you the right _not_ to?"

"If the people fighting for justice don't follow the rules, then who's left?"

"You don't follow the rules, _Batman_. You use terror, espionage, and violence to punish those who deserve it. Where's the law in that?"

" _I don't kill people_."

"Oh, that's sophistry. How can you use violence without admitting the possibility of death as a result? It's a can of worms, _милый_ Bat. And you've already popped the lid."

"What's your point?" Terry snarled.

"Point? I don't have a point. I have a proposition."

The Pretender's eyes fixed on him with an almost hungry gleam as he began to pace. Terry fought the urge to back away. "Help me."

"Like hell I will!" Terry snapped before he could think better or it.

The Pretender kept walking, circling Terry in a powerful unsettling manner. Quiet, very quiet. 

"You asked me before what gives me the _right_ to take justice into my own hands. This arcane law enforcement system you protect was doomed from the start. Not one in a thousand of it s officers—police, DAs, PDs, judges, juries—is capable of doing the job. They're blind to the evidence, even when it's shoved in their faces. I could plaster the city with red flimsies, and they still wouldn't see. Sentencing is a joke. Misery is a much better prison than anything built with walls."

"So you're always right because you're smarter than everyone else."

The Pretender had come around to face him again. 

"I'm the one in a thousand. So are you. You see what other people don't."

_You certainly seem to be_ , Terry managed not to say out loud. "I see a double standard. Why is murder all right when you do it, but not when someone else does?"

"I stop killers," the Pretender said hotly.

"And what will you do when you run out of those?" 

The Pretender's lip had curled into an unconscious snarl; Terry found himself braced for a fight.

"Who do you think you are, anyway?" Terry spat at him.

"Who am I? I decide who lived or dies!"

Terry was in the air before he could think, shrinking away from that poison. He let a batarang fall into his hand and threw it, shattering the light. "Not in my city, you don't."

He felt uneasy all the way back to the Cave. He knew, he _knew_ all Bruce's reasons, all the reasons for the rules that they followed. It wasn't just that it kept the police off their backs; it was the only way to actually make the 'verse a safer place. A society without rules was chaos, and chaos wasn't safe for anybody. Terry reminded himself of that, and didn't think about the temptation to send the razor-sharp edge of the batarang whirling at mad, black eyes.

 

"So, how'd your meeting go?" Veronica asked the next day.

"There's something not right about this," Terry told the holo-display.

"Corporate finance? There's a shocker. So, how did your meeting go?"

Terry frowned. "Does it seem to you that Wayne-Powers is winning an awful lot of these holotech contracts?"

Veronica's mouth, open to say something annoying, snapped shut. She pulled a chair up next to his and focussed on the holo-display in front of him.

"What?" he asked, glancing sidelong at her.

"It's just a—thought I had the other night. When I was talking with Jake Kane."

"Oh yeah? He spill something when you tipped him over?"

"I'll resent that later." Veronica flicked through a series of articles he had pinned on the holo-screen. "I was thinking, that Jake Kane built a company could rival Wayne-Powers."

"Well, by the look of this, he's not doing too good a job. Distracted, you think?"

"Можно," Veronica said slowly, "можно." 

Try though he might, Terry couldn't get any more out of her before Dick and Bruce came down from their chess game.

 

"好久不見," Kirill said, deliberately leering at Terry as he passed him on the stairs to the second floor, where Nikolai was in his office. He should tell Veronica sometime that Nikolai left that window open so the police could spy on him

"Sucked any good eggs lately?" Terry sneered back, ignoring the rude gesture this elicited.

Kirill's barb had hit closer to home than he knew. Terry _had_ been avoiding Nikolai. He would still be avoiding Nikolai, except there was this drug bust he and Bruce had been trying to set up around the whole Pretender thing, and since it was in Nikolai's club, he wanted to make sure it wasn't actually Nikolai's people; plus he needed to maintain this cover. As long as Powers was free out there, he had to maintain this cover.

Not bothering to knock, Terry opened the door and leaned against the frame. Alán, standing guard just outside, didn't even twitch at this sort of behaviour by now.

"Working kind of late, aren't you?"

It was actually kind of late; two days of school, and Terry was already loaded down with homework. Why couldn't Thomas Wayne have given Hill High an endowment for the best Parrises Squares team in the city?

Nikolai got up from his desk and intruded himself into Terry's personal space, but did not kiss him. "Walk with me?"

So transparent. They walked only up a floor to Nikolai's bedroom, where Terry leaned against the thick, wooden door and glowered at him across the room.

Nikolai was Nikolai: professional, a little vulgar, almost as locked-down as Bruce. Terry did _not_ miss, gorramit, his black humour. He wasn't—had he actually been _surprised_ when Nikolai ordered the traitor killed? It wasn't like that hadn't happened before, this past year. It wasn't like Terry didn't know, as he'd taken such pains to demonstrate to Veronica.

He was making to leave, hand on the knob, when Nikolai said, out of the blue, "Amelia DeLongpre."

Terry shot a sharp look back over his shoulder at him. Nikolai shrugged, though he did it mostly with his face. "Something Sasha said, a few weeks ago."

He faced the door again, pulled it open, closed it behind him.

 

The forensic report on the body didn't change, no matter how many times Terry read them. The sections were helpfully tagged to images from the crime scene and the autopsy. You could even see the marks the bolt-cutters had left on the finger-bones. Holo-technology really was a wonderful thing. 

"I'd've thought you'd be going over the street plans for tomorrow night's bust."

Terry had stopped jumping when Bruce crept up on him months ago, but he still grimaced in annoyance. He didn't know why he'd ever expected privacy in the Batcave. Even before Veronica and Dick invaded, there had never been any escaping Bruce. It wasn't that he was _always_ there; there was just no telling where or when he'd appear.

"Is something bothering you?" Bruce asked, and Terry realised he hadn't said anything for a little while there.

"I—" Terry huffed an aggravated sigh and shook his head.

"Is this about Nikolai, or the Pretender?"

Terry looked up at him, searching for implied judgement. Nikolai was an uneasy topic between the two of them.

"Both, sort of. Veronica was right; he's a criminal."

"You've certainly changed your tune."

Terry didn't really appreciate that tone. "Maybe I'm finally seeing things clearly."

"Maybe." Bruce didn't seem to notice Terry's ingratitude. "Just don't go making any hasty decisions."

"Ничего. Let's go over this alley behind the building again." 

Terry cut the autopsy details and pulled up one of Bruce's maps. Then, just in case he hadn't changed the subject enough, "Where is Veronica tonight, anyway? She and the mutt finally facing it off?"

"Interrogating Abel Koontz."

"Tell me another one."

Bruce raised an eyebrow at him. "You think she couldn't manage it?"

"Crane, Poole, and Schmidt were offering their—well, maybe other peoples'—limbs to represent him, and he wouldn't even hear them out. What has Veronica got that he wants?"

Or the Воры, for that matter. And that was the real question, wasn't it? _Amelia DeLongpre_. He should talk with Veronica, soon.

Bruce was watching him think, almost approving. "Come back to it later. Focus on this, for now."

Terry let out his breath slowly. "Yeah."

 

"Have we still not figured out where he's getting the rest of this stuff?" Terry snapped irritably into the comm, thumping hard into a brick wall. "And how's that new radiation shielding coming along? Because at this rate if I ever have kids, they're already going to be blue and have five heads."

"Patience. He wouldn't be going after the compound illegally if whatever legitimate sources he utilises were sufficient."

Terry was a little busy trying to find Blight's face with his fist before his sickly radioactive aura ate through the bolo cords and he got away. Again. 

"Fucking flabby ten-tonne buddhas," Terry gasped.

Manfully, he resisted the urge to curl around his aching groin, but it still stalled him for that crucial moment when Blight legged it up a slightly less dark alley, shrugging off the shreds of Terry's bolo. And damn it, the man really was trying to curdle his balls.

Terry went airborne in pursuit, but he'd lost him; ducked into a building, probably. He pulled out the geiger counter and started sweeping, but the trail ended abruptly out the other side of a dilapidated building. "He's gone. Shielded vehicle of some kind, I'll bet."

"Let it go for now."

"That's rich, coming from you."

"He'll be back," Bruce said with his own brand of inevitability.

 

"You look beat," he told Veronica, back at the cave. She was here pretty—oh. Early.

"Back atcha. Long night?"

"Actually, they get shorter at this time of year. What's your excuse? Big case with the folks?"

"More like, Logan Echolls doesn't believe his mother jumped off that bridge."

"Poor guy; first his da gets stabbed, and now this." Terry couldn't help sympathising. "Is there any chance...?"

Veronica winced. "Not much; less, since Logan saw the Lilly Kane investigation files on my DSB when I foolishly took my eye off him for half a second."

"Ouch."

"Yeah. Can I ask you something?"

Terry forced his eyes to focus on her. "Sure."

"In private."

Veronica led him around behind the Rogue's Gallery and suit cases—was Bruce going to add on another niche for the new Batgirl suit, or just put it up where Gilmore's was now?—and stopped next to the showers, hesitating. She looked nervous.

_Dig in, Batman_ he told himself. Veronica looked nervous. Her arms were crossed in front of her; hunching, even, and biting her lip. She couldn't seem to decide whether to look him in the eye or not.

"You said you saw me, at Shelly Pomroy's party last year."

Terry blinked. He'd been expecting Abel Koontz, or Nikolai, or holotech contracts. Not...this.

"Yeah. I was a little, um, out of it." He'd still just been a rebellious, idiot kid, there with his girlfriend. A bad day hadn't been anything more than a fistfight with Nelson.

"But you saw me."

"看."

"When?" The strain was audible in Veronica's voice.

"Late," Terry answered honestly. "I stuck on it because you were with Duncan, and you two had been good and broken up, before. And then after, so I never mentioned it. Dana and I passed you when we were, um, coming back down the hallway."

Veronica's eyes were wide as manhole covers, and she seemed to have been rendered temporarily speechless, which was a feat in itself. Now if only Terry knew how he'd accomplished it...

"I was with..."

Veronica was pale as a sheet, face contorted in a shifting mask of confusion, exhaustion, and betrayal. Oh. _Oh_. Abruptly, the penny dropped. Terry opened his mouth to say something, but Veronica was already halfway out of the cave, running.

 

Dick raised an eyebrow when Veronica didn't show up the next day, but made no comment. Terry could only conclude that Bruce had conveyed something to him via whatever line of communication it was that they used when he wasn't there to see them. 

Terry did not understand Dick and Bruce. Half the time they were old comrades, Batman and Robin; and the other half, it was like being in the middle of a guerrilla cold war. He hardly ever witnessed the attacks, but the fallout was pretty hard not to notice.

Dick's arrival had brought more concrete changes to the mansion, too. Bruce had had the place in mothballs, with a cleaning crew to come through and tend to the necessities once a week, and Terry had more or less left it that way. He'd altered the grocery order some, cleared out a spare room where he crashed sometimes, but that was about it.

Now, the covers were gone in the main rooms, including the big-ass dining room, which for a while had Terry afraid they'd be hosting dinner parties, but no. Dick pulled a lot of stuff out of storage, too, most of which Terry hadn't even known was there. There were whole exercise rooms Terry hadn't even suspected. Bruce had never shown him, for some reason. Anyone's guess what it was.

Dick was also another voice over the com during patrol, whenever he didn't have a performance to supervise. It was like a vid drama, only without the visual component. _Is that still in business? I think I did my first undercover there. As I recall, you gave yourself away by choking on cigarette smoke. You realise, you're the only guardian who's ever_ encouraged _a ward to practice smoking. I should have reported you to Child Protective Services. You had better stories than that for Child Services. Yeah, they started with the green panties. Wasn't that costume your idea? The indelible mark left by a childhood in the circus, I expect. As_ I _recall, you weren't so snide when it kept you from getting trampled by that camelophant._

The drug deal was scheduled to go down at four in the morning, so Terry had a few hours yet to patrol. He listened to the conversation from the Cave, smirking in the removed safety of the Batmobile.

It was a cold, clear night in Gotham. There was snow on the ground, but none falling, and all three moons were spectacularly visible, combining with the city's light pollution to block out the stars. I had been a quiet night so far; if it went on like this much longer, Terry might sneak back to Wayne Manor and grab a few winks before heading back out to bust one of the biggest Flash dealers in the city.

Terry slipped back into focus on the present at the sudden silence from the Cave. _That's never a good sign._ "Что это?" 

"We've got a hit from a hoverdrone in the Narrows. It's the Pretender. He's just gone into a building there; I'm sending you the coordinates now."

"About damn time." Terry was already turning around. "Too bad the警 are all geared up for this bust tonight; otherwise, I'd get Belker out of bed and invite him along. I could use a little backup for this one."

"Caution?"

"I just want to make sure he doesn't get away again, is all. I'm not taking any chances with this one," Terry said grimly.

"I don't suppose I could talk you into holding off until we see what he's up to."

"We don't know if he'll ever even come back to this place. We have the chance now; I say we take it."

"All right." Terry could hear grudging approval in Bruce's voice. "But be careful. I'm getting some odd readings from that building."

Terry camouflaged the Batmobile and left it hovering over the building, sensors set to ping him if they detected movement. He turned on the suit's cloak before getting out. The streets were pretty dead this time of night; probably some squatters in the condemned buildings across the street, a handful of bums sleeping in the alleys.

Drifting silently towards the roof of the building where the Pretender had been spotted, Terry slipped into the top floor through a window. Inside, he switched his visor over to an infra-red filter.

He worked his way methodically through the eerily empty tenement, peeking out the windows at every chance in case his quarry decided to slip away. Dick and Bruce were quiet on the other end of the line, monitoring the feeds from the suit and the Batmobile both. 

"Anything yet?" Bruce asked.

"Nothing; I wouldn't even breed rats in this place." Even seeing IR blobs and not visible light, the tenement was eight floors of nauseating squalor. Terry thought he was feeling the first taps from the Pretender's oh-so-subtle hammer of baroque retribution. "Any idea what those readings are?" 

"Power source probably." Dick's voice, this time. "D'you think security system?"

"No indication of one yet. Where do you have left to check?"

"The basement," Terry said. 

He could _hear_ the look they gave each other over the comm link.

"I'm going in."

The silence was careful now on the other end of the link. Terry padded silently down the stairs, the AG boots quieter than you'd think. 

Nothing but dead blues and purples. No one in the entire building. Not even—

"Of course it's a trap!" Terry growled at himself. "You still there, старик? Старик?" 

No response. Why was he not surprised? Terry switched over to night vision. The basement was empty, too. Not even any rats.

_"Hello, Batman."_

Terry whipped around and was nearly blinded by the holo-image. Hissing, he flicked the filter off. The Pretender stood in the middle of the room, his burning eyes fixed directly on Terry, never mind the camouflage. Auto-orientation, Terry knew, but it still gave him he creeps.

_"I'm here to offer you a choice. Or you can think of it more as...a simulation. A problem to be solved."_

The hologram started pacing, weaving around the piles of tangled junk on the floor. Terry thought it was still pre-recorded, but it had obviously been scanned in this room. Were the concert cameras still up? He was suddenly less inclined to switch off the cloak.

_"The man who owns the building in which you are standing is a criminal and a murderer. He holds the people who live here, the elderly and impoverished, hostage in crumbling cess-pits like this one because they can't afford to go anyplace else, except the streets. Anyone who tries to make a stand, meets with an...accident. A ninety-year-old grandfather being pushed down a flight of stairs. A single mother being beaten in front of her helpless children."_

Those eyes were boring into him again, uncanny and anguished. They hardened; Terry's gut stiffened. Here we go.

_"So nowMador 先生 is going to meet with an accident of his own. There's a row of, oh, six or seven buildings across the street scheduled for demolition this morning at seven-o'clock. Mador's in one of them. Trapped in the dark, with the rats, where he belongs."_

_Why are you telling me this?_ Terry was starting to get a bad feeling, here. He hurried back up the stairs. The door opened under his hand, and he sighed relief. Time to get out of here; if he wanted to get Mador out before the drug deal went down, he'd have to move fast—

_Твою мать_. A security screen flickered into life across the open doorway, the brighter active line continuing across the basement walls and back around. 

_"Whoopsies!"_ the hologram exclaimed in mock surprise. _"Now, here's where it gets interesting. I've also planted bombs in the cars of both the buyers and the distributers in that little bust you've all been gearing up for. If they go off, the 'verse will no doubt be much improved. But it's sort of hard to interrogate a pile of ashes, and your friends the police won't be able to collect all that evidence they're so fond of._

_"So here's the deal. The security screen will come down in, oh, six and a half hours, when the buildings have been demolished and Mador is nothing but pink mist. Of course, by that time, your other felons will be long dead._

_"Or, you can push this plunger—a little old-fashioned, I know, but the dampening field I've set up inside the security screen to block you communications and counteract the extraordinary functions of that suit of yours would interfere too much with a high-tech detonator."_

_What the—?_ Terry held out a hand; dammit, he hadn't even noticed the cloak switching off. Sure enough, most of his HUD functions were dead. The visor itself was still working, though. 

_"The plunger is connected to the explosives in the buildings across the street. All you have to do is set them off, and the screen will come down. Mador dies either way. Either he dies now, in which case you can save your drug dealers, and the police can seize the drugs and dirty money they have on them. Or they all die."_

"Not gonna happen."

_"I've been reading up on you, since our last conversation. You've got a lot of potential, Batman. You have the skill and the tech and the resources to really make a difference in this system, if you weren't so married to the frankly useless police._

_"But I know deep down you feel it, too. You're like me, trying to defend the natural rights of men in a 'verse run by the powerful corrupt. Tell me,"_ the Pretender said, walking closer, stopping centimetres away to all but breathe it into his ear. _"Tell me you haven't once, just once, taken down a criminal and hoped he wouldn't get up. Tell me you've never swung a blow with death in your heart. Tell me that you've never crossed that line."_

Terry was unable to move, as completely locked in place as though the suit's kill switch were engaged. A weird shudder of compulsion shivered up and down his spine.

_"How did it_ feel _, Batman? Ask yourself that. How did it feel? And remember, time's running out."_

The hologram winked out, leaving Terry abruptly alone in the dark. 

Terry tried, and failed, to turn on the suit's arm-light; pretty hefty dampening field. That left him with the passive-view visor, probably the most redundantly hard-wired part of the Batsuit; about half the items in his utility belt; and the batarangs, whose release was almost completely manual in case of just such an emergency. 

The basement was an open room, with a footprint about half as large as the building's. Terry could see the edge clearly as the perimeter wave ran around the security screen, again and again. It was the only light down here. 

Pulling out a cold-light, Terry cracked it and picked his way over to a wall to inspect it. There were a couple of doors, both on the wrong side of the security screen. 

The screen itself didn't seem to extend to either the floor or the ceiling. He had some compact explosives; were there any tunnels close enough to break down into? The ceiling, maybe; no one else was in the building, at least, which was more than he could say if he accidentally collapsed an Underground tunnel. But there was no telling how high the security screen went; and it really didn't have to go very far above the roof of the tenement to stop Terry with the dampening field on.

That would be visible from the outside, though. In this part of town, would there even be any police around to notice it? _Odds're slim they'll come out even if they do_. Technically, you needed a permit for a security screen, but what was remarkable in the Narrows wasn't that someone would want one, but that they could afford it.

But no, damn it; the security field wasn't encompassing the whole building, just this basement room. Even if he blew a hole in the ceiling, he couldn't get to the stairs to climb out onto the roof. _Хуй_.

_Batman_ , he called himself, holding onto that much at least, _think: what are your options?_

None of them was very good. Help from outside wasn't very likely. According to Bruce, trusting to luck was sloppy work anyway. Blasting his way out was a long shot, at best. Who knew what that security field was doing outside this room? 

His eyes fell on the plunger. Well, that was one answer. Not.

It made sense, in a mathematical sort of way. If you assumed Mador was already dead, blowing him up got you out the other side of the equation with the most lives intact. It was briefly tempting, especially considering how imprecise car bombs were by nature. Mador was sleeze; Terry was sure the Pretender was right about that. He had no doubt that all of them had been sleeze. That wasn't the point. 

The point was, you didn't just _volunteer_ people to sacrifice themselves for the greater good. Terry had always been a little better at math than at other things, but he was fairly certain that if lives were an equation, it was a lot more complicated than subtract one from the right, subtract one from the left. 

That was Nikolai's mentality, the tally and retaliation of a society that existed outside the law. It was a narrow damn box, was what. You could tell Nikolai was just waiting for someone to close the lid on him. 

So if Nikolai was the little man on one shoulder, telling him to let his enemies blow and chase down the Pretender next, Bruce was on his other, telling him the math was off. Terry walked around the room again, then settled in front of the plunger, examining it as closely as he could without touching it. 

One thirty. Well, at least his chrono was working. Terry glared at it, and tried not to remember the rushing sounds of wind and water and sheering metal. This wasn't that.

Terry tried not to think about his father's funeral. It was almost eerie, remembering everything, and also remembering not knowing that the dark, saturnine figure of Derrick Powers was responsible for all of it. 

He glared at the plunger again. Maybe that _was_ the answer after all. There had to be a sensor in this building, because he'd tripped it and set off the security screen. If he could convince the sensor he'd blown up the buildings, the screen might come down.

This, here, was where Bruce would come in useful. There was a fuse running from the plunger down into a small hole in the floor. Terry guessed he'd somehow reached the power and comm conduits running beneath the building and fed the fuse through there and across the street to the condemned buildings. 

That was about where Terry's certainty ended. Bruce knew more about this stuff than he did, and he was pretty sure the Pretender had picked up a lot during his stint with the bomb squad. 

But the dampening device meant that the triggering mechanism had to be simple, mostly mechanical. And the simplest way for a sensor to tell that the explosives had gone off would be to connect it directly to the plunger. 

It probably wasn't that simple, because then he could just snip the fuse and slam the plunger. He didn't see a second line coming out of the detonator, either. 

Terry blinked.

"Could the sensor be _inside_ the fuse?" 

Inside the fuse, a wire could stretch all the way to the explosion on the other side, transmitting the signal back to the sensor here. Passive. Simple.

"Now, if I can just cut the fuse without triggering an explosion on the other end of the line..."

Not for the first time, and unfortunately not for the last, Terry had to concede one of the arguments he and Bruce were constantly having over what equipment it was actually necessary to be carrying around in his utility belt. This time, Terry found himself looking resentfully at three centimetres of shank with a half dozen little tools folded in, including a tiny knife blade.

Comforting himself with the knowledge that Bruce need never know, Terry began to carefully scrape away at the fuse. Everything these tools could do, could also be done with the suit. But even his _claws_ weren't extending right now, and so Terry concentrated on gentling his touch as much as he could and still cut. Not that the neuromuscular amplification seemed to be functioning either.

Something glinted in the dimness and Terry exhaled carefully. "Looks like I was right."

Now for some constructive scavenging. Terry was starting to have a plan.

It was almost three before Terry found what he wanted, or most of it. He was starting to sweat underneath the suit. Since they were designing improvements anyway, maybe Terry could get Bruce to work on that one.

_Focus_. Terry's plan depended on being able to cut the sensor wire without breaking the circuit and possibly triggering a back-up detonator at the other end. If he could just—wrap _this_ wire here, and here. And now the other wire, with some of his own explosives attached.

"Господи, tonight was taking years off his life.

Forcing himself to be careful and not run and break the wire and whatever outcome that would have, lock him in here forever, maybe, Terry let out the longer bit of wire he'd found. He had to unkink it from its sloppy bunches as he went, trying to tangle itself with his makeshift fuse extension; but it didn't break, and the explosive charge he'd fixed to the other end didn't fall off. It only got him about a metre and a half from the plunger, but it was hopefully far enough not to damage whatever sensors the Pretender had put in and around the plunger itself. Or, you know, blow himself up.

Terry set the small wad of plastic explosive down and went back to the plunger. "Here goes nothing."

He felt his heart start beating again with the _boom_ , had to force himself to look away at the last second. Then everything went black, and then it all lit back up.

"Старик! Старик!" Terry shouted. "Tell the 警 they've just got an anonymous tip; someone's planted bombs on Stanis' and Deering's cars. There's a slumlord trapped in one of these buildings across the street. He's gonna be dead meat when they demolish them in the morning. I'm gonna go over there and get him out."

"Let the police handle that," Bruce barked, possibly not for the first time. 

Terry notched the comm volume up over the ringing in his ears; maybe that little charge had been louder than he'd thought. "But he's going to—"

"In three and a half hours. Those car bombs could go off any second. I'll have Gilmore send a team down."

Terry was already out of the building and in the air, the Batmobile shimmering into visibility, waiting for him. He bit a curse back to a growl, because of course Bruce was right.

"Which is closer?" Terry managed, settling in and engaging the suit with the Batmobile. 

"Deering. I'm sending you the coordinates. What happened?"

"The Pretender. He stuck me in some wacked-out damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't trap. It took me a while to get clear of it."

"Why?"

"I think he wants to be friends."

A car lit up like New Year's on the Batmobile's display, license plates, make, and model. Terry recognised one of the three people coming out of the building as Cheng Deering. 

One of her guards was reaching for the passenger's side door, now. Terry slammed his whole palm down on the control that launched the bolo, a mental litany of _хуйхуйхуйхуйхуйхуйхуй_ rattling through his head like auto-laser fire. 

Terry cringed as the bolo grazed the aircar, expecting it to blossom into a fiery, accusatory rain of shrapnel. Any second now.

Despite his better judgement, Terry shot out of the Batmobile in the bolo's wake, dodging bullets from []'s hastily drawn gun and swinging her arms around behind her, where he cuffed them together and pried away the pistol.

This left goon number two barrelling at him. Terry dove, taking Deering with him.

"Will you please stop shooting at the car with the bomb in it?" he snapped. 

" _什麼?_ " asked Deering.

"Die, punk!" charged the goon.

The fucking fantastically helpful police arrived just as he managed to get the human bulldozer subdued. They got to the second scene almost as fast as he did, and at the end of the night everyone was in custody and no one had been blown up, and the loud ringing in Terry's ears had mostly gone away.

"Could we add, like, some sort of hearing protector to this thing?"

Terry waved the empty cowl sort of ridiculously at Bruce. Dick had buggered off somewhere, and they were alone in the Cave.

"I'll Wave Shrieve at Arkham tomorrow and see if he'll agree to consult on it."

"You are one twisted fucker."

"What happened?" Bruce asked, not to be distracted.

"I told you. The Pretender set—"

"A trap," Bruce more than finished for him, the subterranean finality in his voice closing the door on any further evasion.

"He wanted me to decide who was going to die." It almost came out flat, except for that damning quaver of exhaustion.

"But you didn't."

"Being judge, jury, and executioner all the time is just too exhausting, if nothing else," Terry brushed it off. "I've gotta get home."

Terry stopped just long enough to jot a note down on a blank flimsy with a light-pen. He scribbled the characters for Veronica's name, then two more words.

 

Nine days later, Terry walked into Nikolai's office and told him that he knew who Amelia DeLongpre was, and they were about to hand Commissioner Gilmore and Chief Belker enough evidence to hang Derrick Powers and the Воров в Законе from the Gotham Square Clocktower. 

They were standing in Nikolai's room, which they had swept for bugs just now; this was not the sort of conversation to be having in Nikolai's office. It seemed dim even with all the lights on, close with memories that made Terry's stomach tense and his gorge rise.

Nikolai was standing right up in Terry's anger. His eyes tracked closely, trying to read Terry's expression, but Terry put a wall up between them, between himself and the touches he could feel, arms and jaw and sides, just from standing so close. An emotion he couldn't put a name on gripped his chest and made it hard to speak.

Terry looked him in the eye like he was staring at the ocean, blank and impersonal and far, far away, and said, "It's over." 

Nikolai stood in Terry's personal space, raking him with a penetrating regard, for long enough for it to be clear that he felt no need to back off. He apparently felt the need for a cigarette, though, because he walked back to his desk for one.

"I told you at the beginning this was not a smart idea," Nikolai said around the cigarette. He lit, inhaled, held it, exhaled. "You will do well, I am sure, in future."

The edge in his voice wasn't muffled by the cigarette that time.

"Yeah; I'll be sure and put you down as a reference," Terry spat, slamming the door behind him.

 

**Interlude (Keith)**

"The kid got in pretty late last night."

Rory looked up from the DSB holo-screen at her desk. "Before curfew. She's got a boyfriend now, Da. She was out as late with Duncan."

"Duncan had parents," Keith grumbled.

"I think Leo is a very nice young man," Rory said, leaning back in her chair and smiling provocatively up at him.

"You laugh at my pain." Keith wandered further into his wife's office as though drawn by that smile.

"Only a little. Oh, hey, here's a thing," she said, attention suddenly and disappointingly back on the DSB. 

"What's a thing?" Veronica asked, poking her head around the door. She still looked a little subdued; Keith had noticed her spending some quality time with Rory and a tub of ice cream this weekend, but Rory's explanation of _Lilly stuff_ had hardly seemed less puzzled. 

Rory's eyes got a little wide in a way that Keith translated as _ohshit_. He edged around to see whatever it was she had up on the holo-screen. Veronica shot him a suspicious look. _That's my girl_ , he thought, a little ruefully.

"It's—uh—it's about Duncan," Rory managed at last, just as Keith got a good look at the reward notice. 

"Fifty _thousand_ —" Keith whistled. "That's a lot of money for a sheltered rich kid who has maids fold his underwear."

"I knew he was missing," Veronica offered, ducking in to peer over Rory's shoulder. "They're offering a reward?"

"Fiddy grand. And I'd do it for the irony alone." Rory's electric eyes were crackling with intent.

"Oh, no. We're definitely taking the money," Keith said. "If we can get to him first. There're gonna be a lot of other professionals after this one."

"Um," Veronica said in a smaller voice.

"What is it, 親愛的?" Keith asked.

"Well, before I was arguing with Duncan..."

_Arguing with Duncan?_ Keith raised his eyebrows at Rory. She waved him down shortly, eyes fixing back on their daughter's face: _later, later_.

"...I was kind of trying to be friends?" Veronica smiled weakly.

Keith and Rory exchanged a long look after Veronica decamped to the secretary's desk in the outer office. So, their daughter had been spilling trade secrets to the ex. 

"Hy, she's right; at least Vinnie's going to be wasting his time checking bookings at the Camelot," Rory said at last. 

"On the other hand, he could be halfway to Risa by now on a phony IdentCard."

Keith sighed and sat down. 

"Has she said anything to you lately?" Rory was frowning unseeing at the missing persons Wave.

"Weren't you the one telling me just now to _stop_ worrying?"

"I'm less concerned about the boyfriend than the 武館. She's been spending a lot of time there, but she doesn't talk about it."

"It's not effecting her grades," Keith pointed out absently, "and she's getting her work done."

"Mmm."

"She probably feels vulnerable after what happened to Lilly. It's getting less and less likely she'll wake up, you know."

Rory slumped back in her chair, lips pouting a little unconsciously in her concern; Keith indulged the urge to lean up through the holo-screen and kiss it away. When his eyes opened again, one of her hands was cupping his head, and the other was resting on his shoulder.

"It's perfectly reasonable," Keith told those blue, blue eyes.

"If she's training for the Games of Triskelion, I'd just like some warning, is all." She took another kiss from his lips. "She doesn't talk about it, still. I wish I knew she was dealing with it, even badly."

"Maybe this is it," Keith offered. 

"I should've reinstated the mother-daughter aikido lessons, then."

Keith laughed, hitching his hip more securely onto Rory's desk. "She wanted to do cheerleading with Lilly."

"Despite all the mocking Mama put her through." Rory smiled in reminiscence. "That was a lot of mocking. I think the only thing that saved Veronica in the end was that Duncan wasn't on the Parrises Squares team, too."

"So, whaddaya think, partner? We gonna beat Van Lowe 先生 to him?"

"Like the kid said: family project."

 

**Part Seven (Veronica)**

Walking down into the Batcave again was almost surreal today. Veronica felt like a stranger there again. Well, no, she felt like a stranger in her own skin. She'd had sex with _Duncan_ , last year, and he was a rat bastard for leaving her to wake up alone the next morning, even if he'd been at least as fucked in the head as she'd been at the time; and now both he and Logan knew she was investigating Lilly's attack, so it couldn't be long until it was all over school.

Still, it was amazing what a day away did. This place was like a briar patch: as soon as you stopped hacking away the brambles, they grew back again.

"Where's Terry?" Veronica called over to Dick, scanning the Cave curiously. 

The Batmobile was still parked in its spot, she noted, although no one seemed to be around except Dick over on the mats. She'd seen Terry's new 'cycle in the garage; he ought to be in this pile somewhere.

Veronica tossed her gym bag into the area behind the blank-eyed suit cases, and wandered over. Dick waved a brief greeting at her before returning his arm to the more immediately necessary purpose of holding his weight. Not that he wasn't capable of doing that one-handed.

Veronica stood back, watching with a kind of pained envy as Dick flexed his arms and pushed off, landing neatly on his feet. She was getting better at this acro-ninja stuff, but she was still proud whenever she ended something as simple as a handstand with both her feet and not her ass on the ground. Although the chair-balancing had been kind of fun.

"Dosed him with sleep-juice. He ought to wake up around ten, then Bruce'll send him home," Dick answered her question at last.

Veronica felt her eyebrows shooting upwards, no doubt searching for her pinned-up bangs to hide behind. "Did something happen last night?"

Now it was Dick's turn to give her an odd look. "The Pretender pulled a fast one. Car bombs on some drug buyers and a slumlord wrapped in primacord. It was all over the news."

"I've been—kind of busy with some personal stuff."

"So I heard."

"What the 地獄is _that_ supposed to mean?"

"Terry left you a note." Dick jerked his chin at the big terminal with its holo-screens and its planar surfaces, a plastic flimsy sitting folded on top of one.

"Is he all right?"

"All right's a relative scale, in this business," Dick said. "He wasn't injured.

He gave Veronica some time to think about that, watching her curiously, his head on one side. Veronica twitched, then kicked herself. _You don't even_ know _anything; what're you twitching for?_ It wasn't like she could've done anything if she'd been here.

"Go change and get warmed up," Dick told her. "We'll do some work on the bars today."

Which meant that he needed to clear his head. Dick drilled them in martial arts at least as often as Bruce did, but his obvious passion was for the acrobatics. Veronica caught him down here sometimes, when she was alone at the mainframe, on the uneven bars or the rings with a closed, unhappy look on his face. He creaked a little when he came down, but his expression was clearer.

Veronica paused to stuff Terry's note in her pocket, then went to change. You could tell the Cave had been a predominately male domain, because hardly any consideration was given to privacy. Veronica might be a little more concerned with it, if she didn't know for a fact that every centimetre of the Batcave was under constant vid surveillance anyway. As it was, this was actually a less stressful environment than the girls' locker room at school.

Veronica still couldn't believe her body could do this, soar through the air and catch a turn to launch her again. She felt a little better for it, maybe. Her skin felt as different as he rest of her, so that Veronica could almost imagine she really had changed.

It gave Veronica a little distance, anyway, which was a useful illusion when Meg called her hand-held asking if she'd seen Duncan. It would have been really easy not to empathise with the boy. But the fact was that if _she_ was having trouble with the possibility that he had put Lilly in that hospital bed during an involuntary fit of rage, then so might _Duncan_.

It hadn't been a pretty argument, reprising highlights from their break-up last year, with an added bonus of Duncan yelling at her for prying into his private medical history. The ancillary discussion involving what, exactly, had happened at Shelly's party had not been one of Veronica's finest moments, either, karma-wise.

So, now Duncan had taken ten thousand plat and skedaddled. Why was this her problem, again? Veronica had been under the impression that once you stopped going out with someone, he stopped being a part of your life.

There were quite a number of things Veronica would rather be doing than looking for Duncan, or thinking about him, or even being mad at him. Despite half-teasing claims of neglect, most of them involved Leo at the moment. There was a lot, lot, _lot_ that she hadn't told Leo, didn't tell Leo, couldn't tell Leo. But man, did he light up when she came in the room. Wasn't a lot could make her happy lately. If Leo could find it in himself to put up with her busy schedule and trust issues and various other neuroses, ну, Veronica wasn't going to complain.

Unfortunately, Leo was on duty tonight. Veronica found herself talking to another Kane. One of the security guards who'd been a deputy when her father was Sheriff had let her sneak into Gotham Mercy through an Employees Only door. _At least some people still remember Da fondly._

Veronica sank into a pseudo-comfortable hospital chair at Lilly's beside. "What would you think of all this?" she wondered softly.

_"_ Duncan _ran away?" Lilly would make a face that made her eyes go even wider than usual with scepticism. "Guess 媽親 和父親 finally pushed him too hard, without me around to take the heat. 天啊, I miss all the good stuff. Don't worry, though; he'll come back when he gets hungry. He's not too long on backbone, 我的弟弟."_

"He's sure gotten long on nerve," Veronica muttered to Lilly's still face.

_"Please. It was all just too much for that tiny little man-brain of his." A smile and a illustrative gesture. "Well, look; he's my brother:он может быть совсем сукой иногда."_

"I think you're underestimating him."

_"So? Maybe you're not the only one having long conversations with me."_

Veronica blinked, then rubbed her temples. "That's it, I'm officially in need of professional help."

To distract herself from this pointed conversation with her subconscious, Veronica pulled out Terry's note. It was labelled with messy strokes; the message itself was just a name. _Amelia DeLongpre._

"Who are you?" Veronica wondered aloud. And why had Terry wanted Veronica to have her name? Where had he _gotten_ it? Clearly, she had left the Cave too soon.

But if _Bruce_ was sitting on Terry, like as not he'd take exception to Veronica bothering him tonight. Well, she'd conducted investigations before Bruce's admittedly sexy supercomputer entered her life. She'd get on it tomorrow.

Veronica dragged to her feet. _No rest for the wicked_ , Lilly's insubstantial voice chased her down the hall.

 

The conversation she stumbled into (face first, like a pratfall pie) at the office the next day took a hundred and eighty degree turn due Duncan. Apparently, he wasn't hungry yet. At least his brain was still functioning well enough to absorb what she'd said, right? 

Although from a cosmic standpoint, Duncan as a person was probably better off away from his pressure-intense hover-copter parents, fifty grand was fifty grand. Veronica should Wave Mac, and she had to leave for the Cave in a few minutes; but first, there was the curious matter of Amelia DeLongpre.

Veronica glanced around; the parents were still in Mama's office, where what they couldn't see, couldn't bother them. She tapped in the search.

Amelia DeLongpre. Born 17 March 3493. Current address...looked like SUGC. Daughter of Katie Lloyd and...

"Well, well, well," Veronica purred at the holo-screen. 

The next item down was, she saw, a record of a name-change. Veronica wasn't sure where _DeLongpre_ had come from, but she could definitely see why Abel Koontz's daughter wouldn't want the notoriety. 

Quickly, Veronica transferred all the information to her hand-held. Abel Koontz's back-trail had been wiped clean, but she had a rising suspicion about just who was receiving the pay-off for a dying man's confession.

 

"Well, if it isn't Sleeping Beauty."

"Hello to you, too." 

Well, if the sleep had done anything to improve Terry's _mood_ , you couldn't tell it by her. He was carrying a pot of coffee down to where an empty mug sat by one of the mainframe terminals, with a singularly forbidding expression on his face. _Yikes_. The criminals of Gotham had better watch out tonight.

"So, thanks for Amelia DeLongpre. Where'd you dig her up?" Veronica had to trot to keep up.

"Nikolai gave me the name."

"Do you know who she is?"

Terry shook his head shortly. "I've been...busy."

That was almost his Batman voice. What the hell had the Pretender _done_ that the vid-news hadn't picked up on?

"Me too." Veronica tried to keep her tone light, deciding to leave it be for now. "I've tracked her down, but I could use some help with strategy. You think I can tap you guys for some pointers?"

Picking up the mug Terry had just refilled for him and taking a sip, Bruce looked up at her. "Who is this person?"

 

It was the next day before everything was ready. Veronica pulled up outside Amelia DeLongpre's dorm building that evening and had to take a deep breath to calm herself.

So far, the trail was promising: large amounts of money had started appearing in Amelia's account about a year ago. But the payoff, assuming that's what it was, seemed to be coming through the ex-wife, who was living out on One Man, now; meaning they didn't have direct access to the financial records.

Which was what Veronica was doing here. She had to find out where that money was coming from. If it was coming from Kane, then it was a short step to proving one of the Kanes, with their suspicious behaviour and flimsy stories, was responsible.

Veronica knocked on Amelia's door. There was some rustling and thumping from inside—Veronica really hoped she hadn't just interrupted something sordid; that always put people in a bad mood—before it opened.

To Veronica's relief, the girl who answered the door was fully dressed. She had bright curly hair and dark eyes, and an irritated expression on her face.

"Are you looking for Sequoia?"

Amelia, then. Good.

"你是 Amelia?" Veronica opened. "I need to talk with you about the payments you started receiving thirteen months ago."

Amelia tapped a light-pen against the door frame, more tired and frustrated than actively hostile, Veronica judged. "Who are you?"

"Assistant to an attorney here in the city; there's a case he's working on."

Amelia gave her a strange look. "That money's coming from stock options."

"Kane Holoware?"

"Wayne-Powers. It was a patent agreement. Why would you think it was Kane Holoware? They fired—"

"為—" Veronica snapped her mouth shut so hard her teeth clicked. _Why_ would Wayne-Powers bribe Abel Koontz to confess to trying to kill Lilly Kane? _Was_ Wayne-Powers bribing him? Veronica could feel the pieces of the puzzle almost ready to slide into place.

"I need you to pack what you need for a few days and come with me. Your life could be in danger."

Veronica didn't know how dangerous Derrick Powers was, but the Воры were no joke. She wanted Amelia DeLongpre and whatever leads she represented where she could get her hands on them.

"What are you _talking_ about?"

"That money isn't coming from where you think it's coming from. This case is _dangerous_ , Amelia. The Воры are involved. It's corporate, and it's dangerous, and nobody else is going to care if you get hurt."

Amelia was teetering, lip caught between her teeth and consternation on her brow.

"Look me in the eye," Veronica told her. "Do you believe me?"

Ten minutes later, Veronica had her in the Дворянине, trying to explain the whole improbable mess of Lilly's attack and the cover-up, without mentioning to Amelia that her father was dying.

"What is this place?" Amelia asked, stepping out of the aircar and wrinkling her nose up at the slightly seedy condo building they'd pulled up behind.

"A safe house." One of Bruce's, actually. _Whoever_ was paying Koontz to plead guilty, they were probably keeping tabs on Amelia. If Veronica's searches hadn't sent up any red flags, she'd eat a batarang. She needed as much of a head start as she could get.

Amelia dropped her bag dubiously in the dusty kitchen. Obviously, no one had been here in years. The light flickered on obediently, though, at the flick of a switch; and the faucet yielded water.

"I'll come back later with some groceries," Veronica offered. "Hopefully you'll only have to stay here a couple of days."

"好. I have midterms next week. One dank room's as good as the next. You know, I think this might actually be perfect," Amelia said, poking her head through doors.

"Before you dive in, you need to Wave your mother and have her send the patent documents right away. On encrypted disc, not electronically. Tell her to pay cash and use a fake name."

"What will those prove?" Amelia finally sank onto the couch.

"Something important. That your father's being paid to take the fall, at least." Amelia still looked a little lost, but Veronica continued on. "And don't use your hand-held; use this."

Amelia took the com-only device dubiously. 

"It's not traceable." Thank Bruce and his fancy tech.

"好. But I have to be able to take calls from my boyfriend. Unless you also want the police, special forces, and Alliance Marshalls out looking for me. I'll check the caller ID. Only him, no one else."

"Никто. And Amelia? He can't know your location."

When Amelia asked about her father, Veronica evaded the question. Giving up millions to save her father's life, or from a life in prison, was one thing. Giving up millions for three months of the life of a man who'd barely even paid alimony in ten years was probably something else.

And speaking of boyfriends, Veronica had one of her own to call, just as soon as she got Amelia those provisions. She'd stopped in to check the lights and plumbing while dropping off clean sheets for the bed, but most of what Bruce had left in the pantry was either scary and dried or scary and tinned. Veronica had an ugly feeling about what survival training with Bruce Wayne was going to be like, when she came up on it.

"喂."

"Hello, Deputy," Veronica purred into her hand-held as she pulled out from behind the condo for the second time.

Leo groaned audibly. "Let me guess: you can't make it."

"I'm just going to be a few minutes late. You can talk dirty to me 'til I get there," she added playfully.

"You're _killing_ me, Veronica."

"Hey, can I ask you a favour?"

"Anything. Need a kidney?"

"And you talk about _my_ sense of humour." Veronica made a turn onto the freeway, heading for a bridge. "I was thinking more like, the interrogation recordings from the Lilly Kane case. What?" she said in response to the tone of Leo's silence. "It's a closed file."

"I'll see what I can do."

"I owe you one, Leo."

Leo snorted. "You owe me like six. But who's counting?"

"Hey, now, that thing with the chocolate syrup was worth at least two."

"If you did it again, I might consider calling us even..."

Veronica was grinning ridiculously. "That ruined a very nice shirt."

"Oh, I see. I'm less important than her clothes, now, is what she's saying."

"I'm saying it was my _mother's_ shirt, doofus, and it was a little hard to explain without giving the wrong impression."

Leo snorted. "If it helps, this time I can—"

" _Don't_ finish that sentence, Deputy. You wouldn't want to cause a mid-air collision."

Veronica didn't need to see Leo to know the satisfied little smile pulling at his very kissable lips. The image of what he'd look like, naked and smeared all over with chocolate, which her unconscious mind provided her was already not aiding her concentration. Not that she'd seen him naked. Entirely naked. Veronica was suddenly getting a lot more use out of that lurid green ( _Green_ , Lilly?) vibrator Lilly had given her for her fifteenth birthday. 

Leo kissed her long and slow and sweet. His body pressed hard against hers, and he loved the fact that she had muscles, could tumble him neatly to the couch. But Veronica's life was still too unsettled to take the next step. 

In a strange way, the Cave was easier. Sure, Bruce Wayne was a perfectionist and a control freak who made you feel that what you thought was your best effort barely counted as _trying_ ; but the detective stuff at least was familiar. 

And this Amelia DeLongpre stuff finally had the big man interested. Veronica found him pouring over what looked like the same corporate deals Terry had been looking at—was it only last week? Terry was hovering behind him, frowning intently.

"Holotech contracts again?" Veronica asked carefully.

"Bet you never imagined being a hero involved so much math," Terry said drily. 

Instead of answering, Veronica came up on Bruce's other side. She started tapping through the headers, tossing one after another up into a holding cloud.

Bruce sat back and watched her, always weighing, but not interrupting the tenuous stream of her inspiration. Terry followed his lead, looking from Bruce's narrowed eyes to the interactive holo-screen.

Finally, Veronica stepped back, scanning the tag-lines.

"What does that look like to you?"

"Like Jake Kane's getting his ass kicked," Terry said, to save Bruce framing it in more delicate words.

"No." Veronica shook her head slowly. "It looks like Derrick Powers is framing Koontz to blackmail Jake Kane."

And, господи, did it. Contract after contract, for the past ten months, that Kane Holoware had lost out to Wayne-Powers. 

"The girl is going to give you the documentation?"

"As soon as the next courier ship gets here from One Man."

"Corporate finance; did I tell you or what?" Terry shook his head.

"Always assuming Powers isn't just covering his own tracks," Veronica agreed.

"Oh, he's capable of it."

Veronica raised an eyebrow. "What's this thing you've got with Powers, anyway?"

The sharp little smile of triumph this revelation had put on Terry's face vanished. "He killed my father."

Oh. Well that—made a lot more sense now. With the Batman thing, and the Nikolai thing, and Ворыми. Veronica looked up and met Terry's gaze. _Don't worry, T; he's going down_. Terry nodded.

 

"Veronica?" 

Veronica killed her DSB's holo-display with a jerk of her hand, cutting off Dick Casablancas and his confidence-inspiring rendition of Logan's alibi, half a system away in the asteroid belt. Leo had delivered the interrogation recordings yesterday, _literally_ gift-wrapped. She liked his style. But even Mama had these funny ideas about Veronica doing things that were blatantly illegal.

"Hey, what's up?"

Mama crossed her arms and leaned against Veronica's doorframe. Veronica tried to think if she'd done anything _else_ illegal in the past week.

"Guess who came looking for you today," Mama said in a mild but incredibly dangerous tone of voice.

"If you say Jack Harkness, I'm gonna be so bummed."

"Clarence Wiedman. He's the head of security for Kane Holotech."

Veronica narrowed her eyes. " _In_ teresting."

Mama gave her a sidelong look. "And for an hour after he left, I sat here wondering, why would he come calling little on old me? It's nothing to do with Duncan; Da just Waved to say that that rented car your friend Weevil tipped us to was a decoy."

" _Really_."

"Looks like your ex is smarter than we thought. But back to our buddy Clarence. I was just a little proud, I'll tell you. Whatever it was I'd done, I was making them nervous. Then it occurred to me."

Veronica shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

"I'm not the one scaring the Kanes. Da and I haven't touched the case in months." 

"I've been investigating Duncan's medical history," Veronica admitted, hedging.

"And Amelia DeLongpre. I thought we agreed to stop keeping secrets from one another." 

"So I guess he told you." Veronica disappeared Koontz's daughter and Kane, not Powers, investigated. Interesting indeed. "Wait, what does Wiedman 先生 look like?"

"Veronica, I am trying to lecture you here! Will you put down your magic decoder ring long enough to take a look at reality? The last time I pursued this case openly, they threatened your life. I know Lilly's your friend, and I know what happened isn't right; but it isn't worth your dying just to prove the point."

"Do you think this is _fun_ for me?" Veronica fumed. "Do you think I don't _want_ to be able to think of something other than Lilly's face covered in blood? For things to be normal? But I can't just pretend everything's normal. Nothing's normal. There is _nothing_ in my life that doesn't remind me how _abnormal_ it is!"

"And how do you think we'd feel if someone drilled a laser through your skull?" Mama was almost shouting now. 

"Would that get you to take the case more seriously?"

" _I_ am taking it seriously! You're the one acting like she's bullet-proof!" Mama yelled.

"Well, I'm not dropping the case!" Veronica yelled back.

"Like I didn't know that!"

"Well, then what do you want from me?" It nearly came out as a wail. 

Mama closed her eyes and expelled a deep breath of air, forcibly calming herself. She opened them again, a little damp, and Veronica deflated.

"I want you to be safe, милый. But failing that, I'll settle for you running stuff like this past Da or me first. You need to let us help when you're into this kind of thing. I thought that was our agreement."

"Yeah," Veronica said, dropping her gaze. 

Mama came over and hugged Veronica's head to her stomach, stroking her hair. Veronica let her.

"So, where did you put Amelia DeLongpre?"

"Mama!"

Mama returned her look, unfazed.

"Have you swept this place for bugs since Wiedman was here?"

"Since when have you been this paranoid?" Mama retorted.

"Do you want to blow this one on amateur stuff?" Veronica retorted.

"Ve _ron_ ica."

 

Checking on Amelia twice a day reminded Veronica of the garden she'd planted as a kid, all of the plants in which had died because she'd dug them up every four hours to see how they were doing. Everyone, from Bruce to her father, was impatient for the arrival of the patent documents. 

It was a stroke of genius, really: seizing on the opportunity of an opponent's tragedy to manipulate him. Derrick Powers might or might not know who attacked Lilly Kane, but he'd obviously known as well as Sheriff Mars did that the evidence pointed towards someone in her own family. If Jake exposed the cover-up, he'd be putting what remained of his family back under suspicion. 

Veronica still had a few other things on her mind, though. Now that she knew who'd framed Abel Koontz, it was time to figure out who'd attacked Lilly. Which meant she still had about ninety hours of interrogations to watch, something she really shouldn't be doing in school.

Or the office, either; but she was supposed to be here, and both of the Mars P.I.s were out and about this afternoon. Jake Kane, his wife Celeste, and Duncan, of course. The asteroid hoppers: Dick Casablancas, Cassidy Casablancas—oh, Beaver—and Logan Echolls. Now, that one wasn't pretty. Whatever Lilly thought about Logan and their relationship, Logan had been eyebrow-deep in love with her, and he hadn't taken anything well, including _good morning_ for months after. 

"Is that your da?"

Veronica jumped and looked up. Mac waved awkwardly. "Hi."

She hadn't even heard the door open. Veronica tried not to think what Bruce would have to say about that level of inattention, and then she tried not to think about what would have gone down if it had been her parents, and not Mac.

"Привет," she said belatedly, pausing the playback.

"Irvine Xu."

"Who's Irvine Xu?"

"I have no idea," Mac said unhelpfully.

"好, forgive me if as yet I'm unimpressed."

"I don't know _who_ he is," Mac elaborated, "but someone bought his Alliance IdentCard in a locked Grid-zone and had it shipped to one of the spaceport hotels."

"IdentCard?"

And Veronica heard the door in just enough time to kill her DSB's holo-display completely, before Da walked in.

"Irvine Xu," Veronica told him, hoping she hadn't broken out in flop sweat. 

"From Kline Station, apparently," Mac added.

"Da, this is Mac. She knows her way around the Grid," Veronica introduced them. 

"Irvine Xu, huh?" Da said, shrugging off his coat. "I'll check it out."

Mac looked between Veronica and her father, smiling. "So, the bounty on Duncan..."

 

All in all, the Batcave was a much more appropriate place to analyse the interrogation vids. Veronica went in early the next day, after checking on Amelia DeLongpre, and sat at one of the mainframe interfaces, slipping on a set of dual earpieces. She had heartlessly locked Ace, who still didn't like her for some reason, on the other side of the secret door. The Cave was empty and quiet.

Veronica was so engrossed, she almost missed the incoming call on her hand-held. She fumbled off the headgear and grabbed it just before it stopped buzzing.

"Hey, Amelia."

"Veronica."

"Как дело?"

"The files came," Amelia said, explaining the anxiousness in her tone.

"Слава богу. I'll be right over." Veronica was already reaching for her bag. "Hang in there; this is almost over."

"I just—you know, for the first time in years, all I can think about is what I'll say to my da—" Amelia's voice was interrupted by the sound of tinny music on the other end of the line. "That's my boyfriend. I'll see you soon."

Veronica passed Terry coming in on his hovercycle on her way out. The safe house where she'd stashed Amelia was halfway across town, and high winds buffeted the Дворянин all the way there.

There was no answer when Veronica knocked on the back door, so she unlocked it herself and went in. Veronica was starting to have a bad feeling about this.

There was movement in the living room. Veronica stepped into the doorway just as the figure turned.

_I didn't see anyone with a camera_ , Veronica heard a woman's nervous voice, _but there was a guy who showed up twice. He had dark skin, I remember, but nothing else to mark. The second time he was by his lonesome, but the first time he was with a woman. Real professional, they looked._

Tall, dark skin, and a hand-tailored suit. He was tucking something into his inner pocket, although it looked like he was also packing heat. Scenarios of what she should do if he drew flashed through her mind; a distinct possibility, because Veronica was suddenly sure she knew whose brown eyeball had been behind the camera taking the surveillance photos that had scared her mother into the PI business.

"Clarence Wiedman, I presume."

"Mars 小姐."

"Where is she?" No need to say who.

"Gone." Wiedman's hand dropped from his jacket to hang non-threateningly at his side.

"Вы её взяли?"

"She took herself. DeLongpre 小姐 was particularly upset with you, Mars 小姐, for failing to mention her father's declining health." Wiedman reached over and picked up a hat from an end table, settling it on his shaved head.

"Куда?" Veronica insisted.

"Куда вы улетели бы, если бы у вас были свой непрослеженный счёт? Thank you for reminding me of my duties, Mars 小姐. Amelia DeLongpre has just finalised her father's arrangement with Wayne-Powers."

 

Господи, did Veronica wish she hadn't told Terry about the Powers connexion in the Kane case, because now he was storming around in an even blacker mood than the one he'd been in since New Year's. And while Veronica had screwed up, not that she could see what else she might have done, short of haring off the One Man and retrieving the contract files personally—which was looking better and better all the time, by the way—she didn't need Terry to tell her that. 

But seriously, Terry needed to get a grip. Rumour had it he'd put Nelson into a wall this morning, a bad idea on several levels, including the one where Veronica was pretty sure it had used to be a lot more effort for him to beat up Nelson.

"Disappointed?" Weevil said out of nowhere, watching her watch Terry stalk down the hall to a series of inexplicable hoots.

"什麼?"

"What, didn't you know? Word is, your buddy McGinnis isn't so much a Bop hotshot as the Воры hotshot's piece of ass."

Veronica almost swallowed her tongue. Weevil patted her back awkwardly until she stopped coughing. 

"And just where did _that_ little gem of information come from?" Veronica eyed him suspiciously.

"Let's just say, it's amazing what you can hear in the right parts of town."

_Just great_. "I'm not going to get in the middle of this one," Veronica decided. "But it might not be a great idea to say that too loud."

"I'm quaking in my boots, V."

Veronica threw her hands up and walked away. She didn't get very far before she was accosted again, this time by Cassidy Casablancas. 

"What do you want, Beaver?"

"My name's Cassidy," he said. 

"Sorry. Cassidy. What can I do for you?"

Cassidy drew her into an empty classroom. Veronica waited, less than patiently. She had only ever known Cassidy at three removes, Duncan's friend's friend's brother. She hoped he wasn't about to ask her to find his lost keys or pet turtle-duck or something.

"Well, there's something you should know. It's for your own good."

Suddenly, Cassidy had her attention. "Spill."

"Well, the weekend that Lilly was, uh. Me, Dick, and Logan, we were out on the Belt solar surfing."

"I know this." Veronica folded her arms and did not look at her clock.

"好, ну Logan, he, uh, he got—he got all worked up, you know, talking about how he knew то, что Lilly was seeing someone new."

"好."

"So he disappeared in the middle of the night, the night before Lilly was attacked, and he flew back to Gotham to see her." Cassidy was biting his lip in trepidation. "I thought you should know, since you're starting to hang out with those guys again."

"I am not—" Veronica started. "Thanks, Cassidy. Is there anything else you can remember?"

 

"You're here awfully late," Bruce remarked that night.

Veronica checked her chrono; almost midnight. Terry had been out patrolling for over two hours.

"The parents are off-planet tracking down Duncan. I am tracking down...this."

Bruce loomed over her shoulder. "What is it?"

"A shot glass; Beav—Cassidy Casablancas, one half of Logan Echolls' alibi, just coughed up the news that Logan snuck off mid-sloth the night before Lilly was attacked, probably to continue the continual wrangling that constituted most of their relationship."

"You know him; do you think he's capable of it?"

Veronica cocked her head. "Logan is not the most stable individual. And here's the shot glass Beaver said he got for her in the police inventory. They found it in her aircar."

"I'll admit, it's slightly unusual to keep shot glasses in your car, but how can you tell it's the same one?" Bruce asked.

"Lilly collected them. According to Cassidy, the inscription said _I got Flashed on Strobe Drift_. Ну, вот, it matches."

"Now that you know that it might have been Logan, what are you going to do about it?"

"Go to the Sheriff's Department? Lamb's a jackass, but if I go over his head to Grandmamma, he's going to dig his heels in even more." Veronica made a face at the holo-display. 

"He'd have had to reopen it, if we'd been able to prove than Koontz is taking bribes," Bruce pointed out.

Veronica grit her teeth. "We still have all those holotech contracts; maybe we could make something of those, with a little more investigation. Plus the Bop who called in the tip on Koontz, and the fact that it was Jake Kane's head of security who took those pictures of me."

"That's going to be hard to prove."

"There's a witness who saw Clarence Wiedman there, once with a woman with ring tattoos on her hands and once alone. She'll need protection, but I think she could be persuaded to come forward. Whether or not we can drag Powers into it, that ought to be enough collusion to get the officers of the court interested."

"And just who do you imagine is going to be doing all this investigating?" It was evident by the expression on Bruce's face that he knew the answer.

"The suit's practically finished!" Veronica protested. "With Blight and the Pretender out there, don't tell me I'm not needed."

"With Blight and the Pretender out there, I'm not about to put you on the streets until I'm sure you can defend yourself."

Their eyes locked; Veronica looked away first.

 

Mama and Da dragged back into town, a little travel-worn but with Duncan in tow, almost a week later. They barely said hello before crashing, face-first and fully clothed, she was pretty sure, into bed.

Veronica kept her eyes open, but Duncan wasn't at school the next day. It was Friday anyway; not a huge surprise. And what did she want to see him for, anyway? Say, _sorry, now I think your best friend tried to kill your sister?_ Best just to leave it lie.

Trouble came looking for her in the parking lot after school, in the form of Logan Echolls. If she had never taken his gorram case, she wouldn't have any doubts now about whether he'd come behaving like a human being or to bitch at her about Cassidy spilling his beans. She wouldn't know how he looked when his heart broke.

Trouble stopped just out of arm's reach with a pissy look on its face. Well, maybe not that hard to tell. Just because Logan wasn't quite a full-time 渾蛋, didn't mean he wasn't capable of attacking Lilly. Lilly specialised in getting reactions out of people. Veronica just hoped he wasn't panicked enough to try and beat her into silence right here in front of all these witnesses.

"Come to tell me your side of the story?" Veronica asked.

"You mean we're not playing twenty questions this time? Shucks."

Veronica completed the arrested motion of dropping her bag into the car, hands now free, just in case. "Do you mind if we do this on fast-forward? Because I've got other things to do with my time."

"Really? Because I thought this _was_ what you did with your time."

"Unless you're here to confess..."

Logan shook his head. "No, I _wouldn't hurt her_. We were broken up—thanks for that, by the by—and I knew she was seeing somebody else. And yes, it was driving me crazy. When I left for Gotham, I didn't know if I was gonna scream at her for treating me like dirt or beg her to take me back."

Veronica didn't say anything as he glanced away, sniffed a little, then fixed her with an intense look, that hurt she'd seen before back in his eyes, and went on.

"Then I saw her at the carwash."

"I didn't see you there."

"Well, I just parked across the street and watched her—" creepy, "—and this feeling came over me, you know, 我不...不知道 how to describe it, but I just knew it was over. So I sat in my car, and I wrote this note to her, explaining it."

Veronica remembered that day well, even though she hadn't known it would be worth remembering at the time. It was a pep squad fundraiser, the car wash. Because of the time of year, they'd been using sonics, and Lilly had just laughed at the way the sonic hose made her breasts jiggle and appreciative drivers-by crash into things in their fascination. She'd said she had a secret; but Lilly always had a secret. She said she kept them from Veronica deliberately because Veronica enjoyed finding out secrets more than current events. Veronica had blasted her with the sonic hose, and Lilly's cutting retort that at least she _had_ something to shake had been spoiled by her shrieks of laughter.

Veronica could tell that Logan was seeing something on her face, and she hastily shut it down. "Did you give it to her?"

"Yeah, I left it in her aircar."

"With the shot glass?" It hadn't been on the inventory.

Logan nodded. "對, with the shot glass. You know, if you read that letter, you'd know I'd never hurt her."

Veronica searched his face, which was more puppy-dog than rabid ferret-snake; and hell, if she was going to convince Sheriff Lamb of anything, none of it could be the least bit wrong. Three steps sideways, one step back. She sighed. "I'll—look into it."

"Before you turn me into the Sheriff." Logan threw her an ironic salute and swaggered away.

"Like the Sheriff believes me anyway," Veronica muttered.

 

Logan had said that he'd left the note with the shot glass. The police inventory, however, hadn't listed it in either room or car. This meant that either there was no note, or Lilly had stashed it somewhere the police hadn't thought to look. Veronica thought she might know where Lilly would've put it. And that night, it turned out, was the perfect night for infiltrating the Kane house.

Veronica parked around the service entrance, wearing a tuxedo, glasses, and a wig. Although communications between Terry and the rest of the 'verse were still deteriorating via any other medium than his fists, Veronica had managed to pick up on the fact that he was accompanying Bruce ( _flying_ his _private shuttle_ , seriously) to some sort of big Wayne-Powers hootenanny up on Admiral Peary Station. So much for backup; she was on her own, tonight.

The layout of the Kane house hadn't changed since the last time she was here. Veronica picked up a tray of закуской in the kitchen and tried not to make eye contact with anyone named Kane as she drifted oh-so-inconspicuously across the party zone. It was something to do with the Planetary Governor; half of Gotham was here, although hopefully not Lorelai. Maybe there was a police emergency Veronica hadn't heard about; that would be convenient.

On the other side of the gauntlet, Veronica left her tray on the first convenient flat surface—she winced as it toppled to the floor and she had to go back and fix it like a good little menial. But here, at last, was Lilly's room.

Veronica ducked inside, easing the door closed after her. Nothing had moved here, nothing had changed; there wasn't even any dust. Well, there wouldn't be. _You don't have time for this, Veronica._

Turning on Lilly's desk lamp was risky—the door was panelled with frosted glass—but she was going to need light for this. Veronica dragged the chair over underneath the climate control vent and set to work on it with the screwdriver she slipped from her pocket. One screw, two screws, three, four—

"Who the hell are you?" Хуй. Her parents had _had_ to find Duncan. "What are you doing in here?"

Veronica was reaching for the wig when Duncan fucking _tackled_ her off the chair.

"Duncan, Duncan! It's me!"

"Veronica!" Well, at least he recognised her. "What are you doing here?" 

Still, alas, a valid question.

"I'm looking for something." Veronica took off the glasses, which were just getting in her way.

"Well, shouldn't you be looking in my room? I mean, that's where all the clues would be, right?" Veronica suppressed the impulse to tell him that she'd had plenty of opportunity to search his room while he wasn't there, mostly because he'd grabbed her by the arms now, and 天啊, what if it _had_ been Duncan after all?

"—just to leave empty handed," he was saying.

"Duncan, stop."

Veronica slipped his hold but didn't let go of his arms. 

"No, come on, let's see what you can find out. 真的啊, I want you to. Открывать всё. Maybe I left a confession on my—"

" _Duncan_. Покойся, 好了嗎? I don't think you hurt Lilly, Duncan."

And Duncan's arms went limp; Veronica released him and stepped back. "I think Logan did."

Duncan's face only grew more puzzled. He was shaking his head. "No; no way—"

"He wasn't off-planet that day," Veronica continued inexorably. If she could get him on _her_ side... "Dick and Beaver lied for him. He came back early because he found out Lilly was seeing someone else, Weevil, I think, and he admitted that much."

Veronica listened to herself, half-horrified as it all spilled out, but she _had_ to convince him, just one last time. "He said he wrote her a letter that day that would prove his innocence. I remembered that Lilly used to hide things in her air vents—"

Duncan looked from Veronica to the vent and back, and nodded slightly. He swallowed visibly. "Let's see what's in there."

Not a note, but three discs, next to Lilly's favourite vibrator—they looked like vid discs. Veronica handed them down to Duncan, who was still upset but at least much calmer. He stared at them for a moment.

"We can play them on my monitor," he offered at last.

Veronica's nerves were wound taught all the few metres of hallway between Lilly's room and Duncan's. She crossed her arms to still herself while Duncan slid in the first disc.

The opening shot was an empty room, a bedroom, and a shot of a bed. A room Veronica had _seen_ before; she felt her blood run cold.

"Where is this?"

"Logan's. The pool house," Veronica replied numbly as Lilly flopped onto the bed, wearing her tight green pep squad sweater. Lilly continued to sprawl extravagantly on the duvet, maroon like a clear, dark night. 

"Come here, lover. Time to earn your keep!" holo-Lilly called impatiently, her voice startling after all these months. 

Duncan jumped a little, too. Lilly lay back on the bed, staring straight up at the camera. 

Veronica could tell when she saw it _was_ a camera—this set-up must've cost a chunk of platinum—the slight narrowing of eyes as Lilly shifted from _bored_ to _interested_ , before she moved to get a closer view. She looked around; spotting the other concert cameras, maybe?

The image winked out.

"See the other disc." Veronica couldn't believe how normal her voice sounded; there was a lump in her throat the size of an Ice Planet and her mouth was dry and bitter with adrenaline. 

"It's dated October first," Duncan told her and pressed start.

The bed was white this time, sheets whiter than the skin they slipped down to reveal. Lilly was on top of someone, her bra still on in what Veronica mechanically catalogued as lusty haste. His face was obscured by her hair, until she sat back, arching into an obvious thrust, in that moment so breath-takingly beautiful that it took Veronica a moment to focus on the face of her partner as he grinned full into the overhead camera.

"Боже мы!"

"Echolls 先生?" Duncan sounded sick. 

Aaron Echolls chuckled and rolled on top. Duncan quickly froze the holo-vid, although he apparently couldn't bring himself to switch it off, caught in a trance of horror and revulsion.

_I've got a secret_ , Lilly had said that day. Oh, boy, had she.

Veronica felt her legs give way as the whole, perfect picture came crashing down on her. She sank onto Duncan's bed, barely hearing him or feeling the bed dip beside her. Her vision was grey, and there was a ringing in her ears; but she could see it so, so clearly.

"I know what happened," Veronica whispered. "I know what happened." He must have known she had the holos—

"He's here, now," Duncan said at last. "He came to meet the governor."

Veronica broke from her trance and shot to her feet. "I have to—" Wait; _wait_. Veronica took the discs in trembling hands and shoved them at Duncan. "Hide these. If anything happens to me, take them to Commissioner Gilmore and Chief of Police Belker and no one else."

"But—"

"Duncan?"

It was Jake Kane. Veronica hissed and threw herself under the bed. "Just do it!"

"Yeah, da?" Duncan said, stuffing the discs in his pocket. Well, it'd do for now.

"Duncan, it's your sister." Jake Kane's voice was thick. "She woke up."

Veronica was profoundly glad she was lying down. She had to get out of here; she had to get out of here _now_ ; if Lilly was awake, if Aaron had tried to kill her to cover this up, and now the charge would be attempted _murder_ , and _no one knew_.

"Lilly?" Duncan said in a small voice.

"Grab your coat, 好, 兒子?" There was some rustling, and their feet were close together: an embrace?

It was agony, giving Jake and Duncan enough time to clear the hallway. Her wig was still in Lilly's room, so she daren't be seen by either of Duncan's parents.

Veronica's empty-handed purposefulness on the way out had to have drawn some notice, but no one stopped her. Veronica cursed every kilometre she had to go out of the way to get to Wayne Manor, she was keeping the suit with her _all the time_ from this second on.

No one was home; Ace stopped growling after one bark of reproach from her. Dick was somewhere else, and Veronica was almost thankful not to have the arguments. She laughed a little, jittery, at the thought that he might have been at the party she'd just left.

Veronica stripped faster than she had ever done in her life. She slid her feet over thick, ergonomic soles and settled her weight back on thicker heels that housed the A/G propulsors. 

The legs pulled up like hose, slick and easy as silk. The suit was as flexible as fabric, but the material was dense with armour and circuitry. 

Sleeves shrugged on like they knew where to go: no inconvenient snagging or bunching here either. The chest armour felt almost like a corset, muffling her already not-overgenerous figure, reducing her profile and exposed target area. 

No loss of dexterity or grip in the gloves when Veronica reached back for the cowl. Electronic lock-pick, directional microphones, sensors for chemical analysis, and retractable claws. As she pulled it down over hair still pinned back from the wig, she felt the hard strips of facial reinforcements pressing into her nose and cheek and jaw and temple, altering the shape of her face, even to bone-recognition scans. 

The HUD flickered to life, fully connected to Wayne's insanely illegal supercomputer. She'd worn the suit before, in prototype and testing and calibrations, but this was different. 

Veronica took a few steps across the dark, empty Batcave and hit the button that opened the secret exit. With a bracing breath for courage, she lifted off, a black and copper-red streak in the night.

 

**Interlude (Lilly)**

Lilly's eyes widened when the patch of air next to her hospital bed above where the sound of footsteps had stopped suddenly turned into a black figure with long horns and white, white eyes. The stylised image of a bat, quite familiar to anyone who lived within three parsecs of Gotham, was drawn across—where those _breasts?_ —in dramatic, coppery red.

"Who are _you?_ " Lilly asked, not entirely sure she hadn't relapsed into coma dreams, 天啊. 

"I'm Batgirl."

Lilly replied with a sound that expressed her her disbelief.

"Aaron Echolls attacked you; does anybody else know?"

Lilly shook her head. Ow, mistake. "You mean they haven't figured it out yet? They had like, what, seventeen months!"

"Lilly, if Aaron Echolls hears you're alive before the police find out what really happened, he _will_ come here and finish what he started."

"Wait, what do you mean, you're Batgirl? There hasn't been a Batgirl in forever. Or a Batman either, come to think of it."

Lilly thought Bargirl was probably rolling her eyes behind that mask. She was practically tapping her foot with impatience. "Are you trying to kidnap me?"

"The doctors will be back any second. Your parents are probably already downstairs someplace. He was _with_ them; Echolls was at a dinner at the Kane mansion when they got the news."

Wincing, Lilly pushed herself more upright. "Chill out, will you?" Batgirl, or whoever, was seriously tense. "Can't you, like, call the Sheriff's department? I'll tell them what happened. Or if you're feeling really paranoid, call my friend Veronica; her da's the Sheriff. It'll be, like, back-channels."

Batgirl stopped vibrating, but the tension did not amp down. "Keith Mars isn't the Sheriff anymore. I called Commissioner Gilmore; with any luck she can pound some sense into Lamb. But what I really want is to get you in front of some news cameras."

Lilly stared at her. "好了, you really did escape from Arkham. I can't go on camera like this!"

"Think of how much more _dramatic_ it would be. You'll stop the whole system cold."

Lilly narrowed her eyes. _I like the way you think, mystery lady._

"Either it's you on the news tonight, or some 真的 interesting video files I recently recovered. Of course, Echolls 先生 might not realise he's been fingered until he's already smothered you with your pillow... Your choice."

_this_. It's, what, February out there?"

Batgirl smiled a wicked, edged smile that Lilly fell in love with immediately. "Let me take care of that."

Lilly watched with interest as Batgirl literally vanished again. She toyed with the idea of hitting the call button, but really, what an opportunity. After a year and a half in bed, Lilly could use some excitement. 

A pile of clothing opened her door and hovered over to her, bobbing about a metre off the floor; Lilly had to laugh. Batgirl reappeared and held the clothes out to her.

"Put these on," Batgirl said flatly.

Lilly heaved a sigh and accepted the bundle. "You need to learn how to have a little more fun, girlie. Maybe you'd, ah, like to watch?"

"Or I could take you out as you are."

Batgirl politely turned her back, or maybe she was just guarding the door. Lilly wondered in passing why her parents weren't up here already; maybe she was supposed to be asleep at this hour? 

It was actually a lot more work than she remembered, getting dressed; and when she tried to stand, she almost fell down. Batgirl rushed to her side and helped her finish pulling a pair of ship-knit pants up. 

"You're really kind of short, aren't you?" Lilly asked, pretty much face to face with her unlikely and possibly psychotic rescuer.

"Sit," Batgirl commanded, setting Lilly back on her direly uncomfortable hospital bed. She unfolded a wheelchair that had been stashed by the door, then unceremoniously picked Lilly up and plopped her down in it.

"Bossy."

"Hat and gloves," Batgirl said tersely, dropping them in her lap. There was a scarf, too, that Lilly wound around her face for a disguise, covering the rest of her hair while she was at it. Batgirl tucked a blanket around her.

"Where did you get this stuff, anyway?"

"The doctors' locker room. We've got to move fast; they'll have noticed us disconnecting the monitors."

They rolled eerily down the quiet halls, Lilly pretending to push the wheels while Batgirl, once more invisible, sped her along from behind. They stopped at a stairwell door. 

"Hang on," Batgirl whispered.

"Чт—" Lilly began, then felt herself picked up by unnaturally strong arms, just as a voice started shouting behind them.

"Stop right there!"

Lilly was laughing breathlessly as Batgirl literally _flew_ with her up the stairwell, outracing pursuit. Her arms were flung around Batgirl's invisible neck, keeping her close enough to feel Batgirl's breath on her cheek. Lilly felt _alive_.

"Where are we going?" Lilly shouted over the steadily mounting wind. The hat and scarf didn't stop bits of her hair from whipping around her face once Batgirl busted open the door out to the hospital's roof and really got moving.

"GNN's closest," Batgirl shouted back. "I'm going to take us up into the clouds, where they can't see us."

Lilly nodded, then said, "好的!" just to make sure she was understood.

Inside the cloud was dark, and weirdly like floating through a mist of blood. Lilly was glad enough for the chill, that reminded her this couldn't be a hallucination. She clung a little tighter to Batgirl's invisible solidity anyway.

GNN was awake in the middle of the night for, Lilly learned a little later, the abduction of Lilly Kane, who might or might not have just woken up. Apparently she was a big deal. Sweet.

Batgirl got them inside by once more basically kicking the door down—Batgirl did not seem to be overly concerned with subtlety, Lilly noticed. They touched down on the roof, where the helipad was, and _wham_. So much for that door.

They almost ran into a short, harried-looking blonde woman coming out of the stairwell a floor down. She stopped dead and turned so white Lilly thought she might actually faint.

"You're Lilly Kane!"

Lilly grinned at her. "I most certainly am."

The woman looked at Batgirl, who had taken the time to do whatever it was she did that meant she was visible again before busting the door in on the roof.

"And who're you?"

"Batgirl?" Lilly glanced a little dubiously up at Batgirl.

Possibly-a-reporter woman looked like she was about to have an orgasm on the spot. "Uh, follow, follow me? Are you here for an interview?"

"Um, duh."

"Follow me," the reporter said with a bit more certainty, and started off back down the hallway, glancing frequently over her shoulder.

 

Batgirl hovered protectively over Lilly's shoulder during the frantic pre-interview, during which Lilly gladly volunteered to answer questions about anything they wanted to ask and Batgirl refused either to say anything or be moved. 

And then suddenly Lilly was surrounded by a battery of concert cameras in the GNN news room. The reporter they'd first bumped into was sitting in an arm chair across from her and introducing herself as Randi MacFarland. 

They'd eaten up Lilly's insistence on not wearing makeup—let her look as drained and dramatic as possible—and so she was making her first official holo-vid appearance looking half like a corpse. Or so she imagined; no one had given her a mirror yet, which was probably for the best.

"—here with Lilly Kane, who a year and four months ago was attacked in her own home. The Lilly Kane case has stirred up controversy across the entire system. It has ruined careers and overturned lives." Серьёзно? "Tonight, she woke up. And, fearing for her life, came here to tell her story.

"And now, live in a GNN exclusive interview, this is the true story of Lilly Kane. Lilly, I know we're all eager to hear what really happened the night you were attacked, but first, could you tell our viewers how you came to be here tonight?"

Lilly made an effort to sit up and smile. "Sure, Randi. Batgirl brought me. The things you miss in one lousy year, right? Apparently we have Batman again now, too. But yeah, she came and whisked me out of my hospital room, saying as how the whole planet has got the story all wrong and the guy who really tried to kill me is still walking around out there."

Randi was doing a very poor job of looking like she wasn't about to cream her pants. "And who did try to kill you, Lilly?"

"Oh, that. It was Aaron Echolls," Lilly said offhandedly. _Pick your jaw up off the floor, Randi._

" _Aaron_ Echolls? Not Logan?" Randi managed after an unprofessional moment of stunned silence. Lilly smirked.

"Yeah, we'd been, how shall I put this, having quite a bit of sex there for a while. Until I found out he was making holo-vids of it. He had almost as nice a set-up as you guys do here." Lilly looked around at the concert cameras surrounding them.

"And he attacked you because you refused to keep seeing him?"

"He swung a big friggin' ashtray at my head because I wouldn't tell him where I hid the discs." Lilly grinned. "I guess he scurried off, after, or this wouldn't be such a shock to the 'verse."

"Do you plan on pressing charges?" Randi asked.

"Maybe not tonight; I'm still feeling a little weak." It wasn't really an effort to let herself sag or her smiled waver. "But if you're out there watching, Aaron? Yeah, I'm about to kick your 屁股."

 

To Lilly's surprise, Batgirl was still there when the interview wound up, materialising like her own personal guardian dragon. She packed Lilly off into someone's dark office. Not that Lilly was up to much of an argument right now, but,

"真的啊?"

"Until I know for sure the police have Aaron Echolls in custody," Batgirl said, planting herself baldly between Lilly and the door.

"I can't even _walk_ on my own."

"Then you won't be able to defend yourself very well."

"You have _no_ sense of humour," Lilly complained.

Batgirl stopped talking to her then. Lilly sank back in the office chair behind some mid-level grunt's desk and tried to keep her eyes from drifting shut with a stream of ineffective chatter. She'd gotten _quite enough_ sleep, thanks.

A loud pounding at the door made both of them jump. Lilly glanced up at Batgirl, whose obvious tension wasn't doing her own nerves any good.

"Lilly?"

"Da?"

"Слава богу. Can you let me in, honey?"

"I'm not really the one in control of the door, Da."

"Is someone in there with you? Tell them to open the door."

"They're still chasing him down," Batgirl said as if that explained everything.

"It's my _da_ , Batgirl. I think he's safe."

"The door stays shut."

"Oh, for the love of god, loosen up already!"

Lilly pushed herself to her feet, leaning heavily on the desk. She took one step away, then another, before her legs gave out.

Batgirl was there instantly, taking her weight. "What are you _doing_?"

"Lilly? Who is that?"

"It's Batgirl. Hasn't anyone in this building shown you a holo-vid?" Lilly snapped.

"Lilly, I want this door open _прямо сейчас_."

"I'm _working_ on it. Keep your pants on, would you?" Lilly glared up at Batgirl. "Are you going to put me down anytime soon?"

Batgirl's expression, what there was of it, didn't change. "That depends. Are you going to cooperate?"

"Are you _insane_?"

Batgirl didn't answer, and she didn't let go of Lilly. Lilly glared at her.

"Did you hear me? Hel _lo_ , 'verse to psycho." 

Lilly waved a hand in Batgirl's face. Batgirl snapped back into focus. Lilly gave her an impatient look.

"It's over."

"Что?" 

"Lilly, what's going on in there?"

"They have Echolls in custody. You're safe now."

Batgirl settled her firmly back in the chair, detached her arms one after another from where they'd some how come up around her, and laid them in her lap. Everything was going sort of fuzzy around the edges.

Da barely spared Batgirl a glower when she finally opened the door, before rushing to Lilly's side. He all but fell to his knees, big, slightly sweaty hand on her face as he stared up at her; and 天啊, there were _tears_ in his eyes.

That was when Lilly lost it, throwing her arms around his neck and sobbing, oblivious to the vid cameras that packed the door behind him and Batgirl slipping away.

 

**Part Eight (Terry)**

"Are they all gone? _Please_ tell me that they're all gone."

"The cruiser just went into hyperspace," Bruce told Terry over the comm link. "And so far, scans of the debris show no signs of Powers—Blight."

"Слава богу," Terry sighed. All this week needed to be any worse was for Drusilla to show up. Powers turned out to be Blight, and some scary-ass Alliance Feds showed up to hunt down the Pretender, who'd showed up on the Wayne-Powers board of directors, probably enabled by that gorram stock market stunt he'd pulled last week, and then Powers' son was so hungry for power that he tried to manipulate Batman into solving the problem for him, which resulted in an unmanned waste scow blowing up, and hadn't that been fun?

"Come on in," Bruce told him. "There's something else I need to tell you about."

"Don't make me cry, старик."

You could _hear_ the slow gorram smile in his voice. "Oh, you're going to like this one."

 

" _Batgirl?_ " Terry thought he could be forgiven for the way his voice squeaked; it felt more like he'd been awake for fifty days, not fifty hours.

"I'd say stay up here another day to give you a chance at some quiet, but I'm afraid if we left her another eight hours, she'd declare a one-woman war on the Alliance. I'll pilot us down; you catch a few hours' rest."

"没有母親的 小狗."

Terry lay down in the back of Wayne's personal shuttle and for fifteen minutes tried, unsuccessfully, to rest. He came back into the forward cabin, freshly scrubbed but still feeling like someone was beating him with a large, spiked mace.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Bruce asked.

"Talk about what?"

"I assume it's the Pretender that's bothering you, but I've been wrong before."

"It should never be down to just one guy, deciding to off someone." That one, he felt in his bones. "It's too big for that. And all it gets you is more guys like Powers, killing—"

Terry swallowed, a little self-conscious. He could feel the panic and the impact and the water rushing in as he flew away, _away_. 

"I'm no better than he is," he said softly. "I left Fixx to die, because he killed my father. I threw nerve gas at Powers, turned him into a monster, and in the end I let him fry."

"It's easier for a bad man to work with a good one than the other way around. It's one of the problems with undercover work," Bruce said with unholy penetration.

Terry's head whipped up. "I wasn't talking about Nikolai."

Bruce didn't say anything more, and neither did Terry. 

 

They landed mid-afternoon Sunday, local time. Terry was glad that Bruce was piloting, because he would have crashed them into a passenger shuttle, or maybe the Line River. That would have solved all of his problems.

At the Manor, he showered again. Because he hadn't been able to sleep at all on the shuttle, despite being tired enough he more or less wanted to die, Terry went down to the kitchen to brew a pot of coffee and transfer it via IV to his bloodstream.

Terry stopped just outside the kitchen. Something was wrong. There were noises in there. Another person. Dick. 

"Ah, there's the reason I got out of the masked hero business." Dick's smile was just humourless enough that Terry didn't take a swing at him. "來吧. I made coffee."

With this offering of peace, Terry reluctantly stepped the rest of the way into the kitchen.

Dick watched Terry pour a large mug of steaming, fragrant brown liquid and settle down into a chair at the battered kitchen table. Terry tried to ignore him, but that hovering had to be deliberately obnoxious.

"I'm going to give you the Talk," Dick said at last, "since someone ought to and Bruce has terrible communication skills for someone who can read people the way he does."

"I think I've got that one figured out, thanks."

"Not that talk," Dick said. 

"Ничего."

"Which bothers you more?" Dick asked out of the blue. "That you left him to die, or that you still don't care?"

Terry shot him a glare, which Dick deflected easily. A youth spent ducking Bruce's eternal glowers had likely made him immune, Terry thought sourly. He was about to get up, but before he could, Dick refilled his mug.

"The hard part is making yourself save the渾蛋 even when you don't care. Because if you kill 'em, if you let 'em die, they win. You're letting them make the rules."

"Is that what it's about? Power again? Who makes the rules?"

"That's how you do it," Dick said evenly. "How you keep them from getting inside your head. and don't tell me I'm full of 熊貓尿, because your subconscious has got it half figured out, or you wouldn't have gone off that Nikolai like you did."

"What would you know about it?" He sounded petulant even to his own ear, but he couldn't help it. 

Dick chuckled. "I've had relationships more fucked up than that one, believe me. But if you can have sex with someone for a year without ever talking about it, you'll do just fine in this line of work. I don't know about the other areas of your life, but you fit right in around here."

"Gee, thanks," Terry said insincerely. He downed the rest of his coffee in one scalding draught and stood up. "See you around."

Obviously, Terry was not going to get peace and quiet around here. And he couldn't handle Mama and Matt right now, even though he hadn't seen them in almost three days. 

Revving up his hovercycle, Terry decided to go for a drive. It was a stupid thing to do; evening was darkening into night. Gotham _was_ Gotham after all, and Terry was mortally exhausted.

But he needed to clear his head, and he had noplace to do that except the streets. Usually, he'd patrol, but he was absolutely not getting back into the Batsuit tonight unless someone tried to drop a freight shuttle on City Hall.

Terry had been in a bad mood for weeks, now. He'd thought shutting down the Pretender would take the load off, but those two men who'd come to track him down, Feds or whatever the hell they were, had given him the shivers. Started him wondering what you'd have to do to a body, to produce someone like the Pretender, deliberately.

The Pretender had got under Terry's skin, right enough, but it was Nikolai he'd reacted against; Dick had gorram nailed him there. Had he been right about the rest of it? Was it really just about control, and not about right and wrong?

Terry leaned into a curve on the GBH, sweeping north towards the aesthetic but dilapidated bridges there by a roundabout path. Traffic was light this evening, and Terry knew where all the speed traps were.

Had Terry been letting the Pretender decide for him what was right and wrong? Because he hadn't liked some of the stuff he'd known Nikolai was doing before, but it hadn't been that overwhelming surge he'd felt building since—since—

Since the third attempt on Nikolai's life, and that damn broken hand. Terry had felt like he was drowning in exquisite slow motion. And now, instead of being relieved, his head had slipped under.

They had to come to some sort of accommodation. Now that Derrick Powers had been outed as a walking biohazard and probably (but not necessarily) spread as atomised radiation over half the system, his son Paxton was taking over the empire, which even a preliminary encounter told Terry was a state of affairs that shouldn't be allowed to continue. Not to mention that a certain amount of the evidence Nikolai was going to need to take down the Воров still involved Wayne-Powers.

The bitter winter rain whipped at Terry as he crossed leaden water, impulse vortex churning up the slush beneath him. He was clipping the tip of the Narrows, huddled shapes peeking out at him and then retreating back into their shells of misery. Terry suddenly realised that that unidentifiable feeling he'd had facing off Nikolai for the last time had been sheer _terror_.

"Хуй," he breathed, blustery wind blowing away the profanity. "Я такой идиот." 

К чёрту с Dick Grayson's smug, knowing face. No wonder he'd pushed himself away as far and as fast as he could. Terry felt the mad impulse to kick the 'cycle's propulsor into overdrive, strike out south, and not stop until he ran out of fuel, just to prevent himself from following the madder impulse that was even now leading him up into the Heights. 

Terry picked the lock and reset it behind him. Nikolai's security knew better than to bar his way by now. Alán jerked her chin towards the stairs instead of giving him her hard look, which meant Nikolai was working late.

Terry was soaked to the skin with cold, late winter sleet. He'd already dripped a puddle on Nikolai's expensive Mallorean carpet by the time Nikolai looked up at him.

"I had wondered," and Terry thought Nikolai was choosing his words very carefully, "if I would be seeing you again."

"I had a few things to work out," Terry replied, watching Nikolai come around his desk. 

Nikolai stopped in front of him, just close enough to kiss. "Yes; I see you have been busy."

"That isn't what I meant." Terry drank in every flicker of those steel blue eyes.

"Tell me," Nikolai said, very softly.

Terry kissed him. He closed his eyes as Nikolai's mouth opened to him and pressed close, getting horrible Gotham rainwater all over his fine, expensive suit.

Nikolai kissed him back, and kissed him again, and held Terry to him while they breathed hard in an embrace neither one of them could deny meant something dangerous. Terry let his arms settle around Nikolai, and rested his head against warm flesh and fine wool.

"來," Nikolai whispered in his ear.

 

**Interlude (Nikolai)**

Terry followed him upstairs to the familiar, dark bedroom, where neither of them moved to turn on the lights or draw the curtains over his window. Nikolai pressed him down onto the bed, still dripping wet; did the boy have no sense at all? _Obviously not_. Nikolai smiled a little to himself, against the muscles that curved into Terry's shoulder.

Nikolai stripped Terry bare, knowing this was a selfish thing he did as Terry's clothes landed one by one with wet _splats_ on his floor; but he did not have the heart to say no. So, selfish, he bared they boy's pale skin, tracing lightly the new bruises that had sprung there. 

Terry squirmed under his hands, reaching for his suit. And, selfishly, Nikolai let him peel away the layers. What was he doing trying to prove himself to this boy? Why did he kiss him so fervently when his hands at last found skin to pass over?

Questions Nikolai asked himself so he didn't have to admit he already knew the answer. So innocent, that touch, as it had been before, hands spread wide in a simple, surprising desire for contact. Feeling his breath. 

It was a long time before all of Nikolai's shirts came off, and the erection in his trousers was becoming increasingly desperate. Terry whimpered a little every time his hard prick scraped the soft wool, marking the fabric with smears of clear liquid.

Groaning, Nikolai reached down and undid his flies so he could pull out his cock and stroke them both together. He broke their kiss messily to watch their dicks pumping in almost-unison, mouth stuck open as he panted for air.

"Fuck me," Terry moaned, already groping for the bedside table.

Nikolai took the lubricant from his hand, kissing him deeply and giving their cocks one more squeeze before pulling back. It was good that his hand had healed. He sank two fingers into Terry's ass, which had tightened again during their little...hiatus. 

Terry swore something and dug _his_ fingers into Nikolai's shoulder. A pleased smile started to stretch Nikolai's face. Here was someone who was honest with him, in his own way. They had done this the other way around, on occasion, and Terry was a divine beast, driving and teasing to exactly the right degree.

Terry liked it hard, liked to _feel_ it, to wear the marks of Nikolai's fingers for days after. In this moment, with echoes of another night and drying October leaves skirling past this window, Nikolai could think that that had been when the lies they told themselves had started to come apart.

He pushed inside Terry's body too soon and not soon enough, forcefully enough to make him cry out. He wanted to see Terry's face tonight, and to make him dig _his_ fingers in until they left bruises over blue lines of ink.

Nikolai fucked him, his suit trousers still on and the zip no doubt jamming uncomfortably up against Terry's ass with every thrust. He leaned in, the one of Terry's legs he had slung over his shoulder bending with him easily and permitting half-there kisses.

The heat and squeezing pressure of Terry's body around his cock made him want to thrust in and never pull back, except that it felt so exquisitely good to thrust in again. If he stopped, sank into Terry's willing flesh, the boy started rocking up against him, trying to grind out his own pleasure.

Having mercy on those dark, deep eyes, Nikolai took him in hand again and resumed his thrusts, a faster rhythm than before. Terry was murmuring Nikolai's name again and again, shudders spreading through him now.

"Пожалуйста," Nikolai said into the skin below one ear, and held on while Terry came.

Orgasm overtook Nikolai with the last reflexive clenchings of the body beneath his and hit him like someone had cut his strings. He slid out slowly and let Terry's leg fall from his shoulder, drawing Terry after him onto his side instead.

Warm, living body so close against him, and not to mind that the bed was all sorts of damp now, and they had not made it beneath the covers. Selfish, that he did not want to think of Terry leaving soon, to go back to his family, or the cold streets.

"It's stopped raining," Terry said a long while later.

"So it has."

 

**Epilogue (Bruce)**

Bruce didn't enjoy these functions. He didn't dance anymore, and he'd always considered them a waste of time unless they could be used to further a case. But this one was being held in Dick's honour, an old, old friend renewing ties, and so he was obliged to make an appearance.

Terry was around here somewhere, probably over by the food. Bruce was watching him closely these days to see if he was working up to a final growth spurt; he'd never be as solid as Bruce himself had been in his prime, but it was possible that the reason he hadn't started filling out yet was that he still had a few centimetres of up left to accomplish.

Right now, Bruce was lurking by a wall, not quite inside the ballroom. He'd sit down, except such a stationary position limited his options for evading the multitude of tiresome people with which high society events were populated. Dick, of course, was dancing. Even after all these years, given the choice, Dick would rather be moving.

He'd always moved well, with the sort of performer's flair that attracted the eye. Bruce had trained him to use it for misdirection and subterfuge, but that joy in grace was the indelible mark of his long-murdered birth parents.

Right now, Dick was dancing with Lorelai. Bruce could still see the reckless firebrand who had at age fourteen painted her face black and chased Robin across the city on the jumplines. She hadn't caught him for two more years, but she'd worn him down in the end.

She'd worn Bruce down, too, when Dick left the first time. Bruce's eyes were fixed on the dance—the whole room was watching them dance; Lorelai preferred loose trousers to cumbersome skirts for ballroom dancing, and the damascened silk flashed, catching the light as brightly as Dick's long, silvered hair with the showy acrobatics of this brother-dance—but what he really saw was a lithe figure in Gotham's moonless night. He could smell her hair, the sweat that saturated the fine curls at the back of her neck, a mixture of blood and musk when adrenaline-fuelled lust overpowered injuries sustained in the twilight world.

The crowd clapped when the last chord was struck; some here must remember the storybook romance of Lorelai Gilmore and Dick Grayson fifty years ago and the way they'd danced in their youth. Bruce wondered if any of them remembered that she had also danced with him.

Lorelai kissed Dick on the cheek and whispered something in his ear that made him laugh. Her husband was holding up a wall on one side of the dance floor in a manner which reminded Bruce, with some amusement, of himself. Bruce recognised the body-language of Lorelai trying to persuade her uncooperative spouse to take the floor with her. _I promise, no black-flips! We don't even have to dip._ Some things never changed.

Dick, maybe as a result of some childhood habit, wandered back over to Bruce. He'd acquired a glass with about three fingers of водки in it somewhere between the centre of the ballroom and Bruce's chosen patch of wall, which he leaned against with moderate disrespect to Bruce's personal space.

"You talked with him, I take it," Bruce said, following Dick's eyes to Terry's dark head, yes, by the buffet.

"Sometimes it _is_ better to talk about things."

Bruce didn't even bother to reply to that.

He didn't have to look at the expression on Dick's face, either. "Sometimes."

"Do I need to tell Tim on you?"

"You know me better than that. Hey, does this mean I'm finally forgiven for stealing away your precious younger son?"

"He didn't have to stay behind," Bruce said, letting a touch of reproof colour his tone.

Dick laughed a little. "He doesn't really like to be away. Blüdhaven's planetary governor would flip if he knew how much of our Grid security is just little brother being scary."

"You still call him that." Bruce didn't know why that surprised him. In some ways, it had always been a difficult relationship for him to understand. Bruce had never had a brother.

"That's what he is."

"That's not all that he is."

Dick sighed. "Does it really both you that much? You and Lorelai, after all."

"That was...different."

There was a shrug in Dick's voice that had always been obscurely irritating. "If you say so. Do you _really_ still...not know?"

"It was necessary," Bruce replied shortly. Necessary to not be sure, if he was going to respect Lorelai's decisions. 

"Huh."

There was a long pause after that, filled with the cadence of a waltz. "Little brother thinks maybe you're still disappointed in him. For not...carrying on the family business," Dick said at last.

Another pause. "You've done a pretty good job of not talking to us for the past thirty or so years, you know," he added.

Bruce didn't deny it. He had always taken those sorts of wounds too personally. It wasn't that he didn't forgive; he'd just never learned how to make the right words come out around the hurt.

"Same old Bruce. You should try actually telling him that. You two might even manage a conversation that isn't about tear-gas dispersal or body armour. I mean, it's taken the best part of four decades, but I've almost got him trained to express himself using words, instead of expecting the rest of the 'verse to respond to telepathy."

"We'll see."

"Same old Bruce, all right." Dick laughed again, but not unkindly. "Maybe I should write the kids a Bat-to-human dictionary. Save them duplicating all my effort. I'd hate to think it was wasted."

"You didn't turn out too badly," Bruce felt compelled to point out.

Dick was quiet for a while, his face as hard to read as Bruce had ever seen it. Then he smiled a very Bat-ish smile. "I guess not. Thanks, Da."

Dick straightened from his lean and sauntered away, empty glass in hand. Bruce, for once, found himself not silent but speechless. It made him feel better, anyway, about the new, empty case on the end of the memorial row of suits.


End file.
